God's Blessings On This Wonderful Underworld
by AquaIsUseless
Summary: When Kazuma and co take a a seemingly simple quest to investigate a mountain they initially find everything to be quite a mundane trip; unfortunately for them, the next trip might be one with more excitement than they bargained for. (Cover art by Spectrum4rt on twitter)
1. Prologue

** Prologue  
**

"What even is this quest? Did you really have to wake us up this early?" Aqua lazily grumbled, rubbing her eyes.

"Aqua is right, Kazuma is not normally the one to drag us into quests. You usually laze around in the mansion. Are you really Kazuma? I am kinda happy that we are going on a quest, but it is unusual for you." Megumin said.

"Is me going on a quest really that unnatural? You know, I also have an adventurous spirit!"

I told them, pumping my fists into the air

"I don't believe it. Something is up about him, Aqua, try exorcising him."

"I don't feel anything possessing him, what can it be? Can it be something even I can't feel?!"

Is that what they really think about me? Is it really that unnatural that the 'Goddess' who is always cocky could doubt her abilities?

"Luna-san told him he had to do quests or they will not give him protection from taxes that other adventurers have, since he isn't really adventuring. It would just be better to collect taxes from him! He doesn't work, so taking his money would be beneficial!"

Darkness revealed the true reasons behind me taking on this quest

"Guess that makes sense." Aqua said as she yawned

"Sounds like something Kazuma would do."

"What does that mean?" I asked Megumin.

"And anyway, don't you do the same amount of quests as me? So if they make me pay taxes, you will have to pay too."

Aqua jolted awake as I said that, but the other two were unfazed. I looked at them questioningly.

"They only collect money with people higher than 10.000 Eris in earnings, I send most of my money to my parents, so they wouldn't take taxes from me even if I wasn't an adventurer."

"My family already donates a lot of money, so we are exempt from taxes, and if we weren't, I would gladly give the money."

These two are master tax evaders, huh?

"Let's be quick Kazuma! We have to stop those nefarious monsters from capturing the Princess of Hyrule!" Aqua started running forward.

"Hey wait! Do you even know what the quest is?!"

"What is it? We must be quick!" She normally wasn't this enthusiastic, it seems like she will do anything when it comes to money.

"We have to investigate a mountain, several kids have went missing there. We just have to get in, investigate and get out. Nothing else."

"Ah, so you picked an easy quest on purpose. So he isn't completely possessed. Also, didn't I tell you to not pick indoor quests? I feel useless in them." Megumin said while looking at me with a mix of disgust and relief

That is because you are useless, though.

"First of al-"

"I tried to make him pick a harder quest, but he refused."

I am not even gonna argue

"We aren't going to kill a Blue Eyes White Dragon!"

"Why not? It wouldn't stand a chance against my Explosion!"

"Yes it would! It would kill all of us before you said one syllable!"

**Part 2**

We were walking down a forest, suspiciously, it was very peaceful, birds were chirping, flowers were blooming...

"Kazumaaaaa… When are we reaching there? We have been walking for hours."

"Hey Kazuma, Can I use Explosion? I haven't used it today, so can I use it on that mountain? Please?"

"Kazuma! Do you think there will be monsters there? Big, strong monsters who will have their way with me after they capture me?"

…..And idiots were being annoying

"No, no, and no. I will tell you when we reach the-did you say mountain?"

I looked around, and sure thing, there was a mountain in the middle of the forest, I think this is , our destination

"That is what we are looking for"

"I feel an ominous aura from there, Kazuma, is this really safe?"

Shit….me too, should we really do this quest?

"Don't worry Kazuma! I will protect you from all the big, male, orcs in there! _Mhhm"_

That just makes me worry more

"Let's just blow up the mountain and leave, it seems like a magnificent subject for my ultimate magic!"

"No, we are not doing that, we are just gonna go in, and if anything bad happens, we are bolting away."

"Can I use explosion then?"

"No- Do you know what? Yes."

"Ha-ha-ha! Then I shall show you my true power!"

I don't want to see it.

We examined the mountain, it looked pretty normal for a mountain, if we ignore the "ominous aura" thing. There was a cave entrance visible at the base of the mountain, the entrance was pretty big and looked….unnatural, like it was man-made, I hope it is not monster-made.

I activated my **[Enemy Detection]** skill, there didn't seem to be anything in there, but I still readied myself to be careful.

"Let's go in there." I pointed at the entrance.

"Kazuma...Are you sure about this? Maybe we should go back and pick an easier quest. I am getting cold feet about this"

"We have to do the quest by tomorrow, we can't lose much time."

For some reason, I am **[Determined]** to do this quest.

"That is really weird for Kazuma, he would be one to run away first"

"Shut it meatbag, go in first."

"_Mhmh_" She moaned while going in.

I ignored the weird sound she made and went in behind her, the others followed us.

The narrow entrance led to a cavern

I examined the opening, it was molded and overgrown with vines and moss. There was a large hole in the middle. That is pretty suspicious

"This doesn't seem so bad." Aqua said as she examined the cave.

"Will you ever stop triggering flags?! Are you sure you are not the Goddess of Flag triggering?"

"Really, nothing bad is gonna happen!"

Really, something bad is go-

"Waaaaaa" Aqua screamed as she tripped on a vine and started flailing around dangerously close to the hole

"I told you!" I ran up to her and grabbed her by the arm, but since she didn't stop flailing around, I lost my balance too and we both fell into the hole.

"Don't worry Kazuma!I am gonna catch you" said Darkness

She jumped in and grabbed me by the hand and used her sword to stab the cliff and stop our fall

She missed.

"HOW CAN YOU MISS A WALL?! ARE YOU THAT USELESS?!"

"Darkness, grab onto this"

Darkness grabbed the staff extended by Megumin and stopped us from falling

"Thanks Megumin!"

"Now pull yourself up"

We are saved!

"I have never been that grateful to you, Megumin!"

"Than-wait, say that again."

"What about me?"

"Said the person who missed a wall."

"_Mhmh_"

"WAAAAAA-I AM GONNA SLIP, MY ARM IS SLIPPING OUT OF YOUR HAND, KAZUMAAAAaAaAaAaA"

"STOP MOVING AROUND, YOU WILL MAKE DARKNESS LOSE GRIP, DO YOU WANT TO DIE?"

"Don't worry, I may have poor accuracy, but I am confident in my strength. Also, carrying two people over a hole that leads to certain doom feels really good!"

"Darkness...you may have the strength to hold onto my staff, but I you are too heavy, so lift yourself up fast"

Shit

"I am not heavy! My armor is!"

"It is not time to act like a maiden! Just climb up!" I told the Noble Lady who finally broke character.

Darkness finally listened and started pulling herself, and by extension, me and Aqua up.

"AAAAA KAZUMA, MY ARM IS SLIPPING. FASTER! FASTER!" Aqua once again started flailing

Should I drop her?

"Aqua, don't flail, I am gonna fall in too!" Megumin said just before joining us on the highway to hell

"Ah."

"AAAAAAA! KAZUMA! WE ARE FALLING!"

"YOU IDIOT! WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"THE SENSATION OF AIR RUSHING PAST ME, FALLING IS SO GOOD!"

"I CAN DIE YET! I HAVEN'T BECOME THE DEMON KING! IT IS TOO EARLY! MY CRIMSON PATH CAN'T END NOW!"

Just how big is this hole!?

We fell for what felt like eternity, am I going to die again? Are all of us gonna die? Even if only Aqua survived, she could revive us, but right now, it seems like she is gonna die first. Is this really the end?

My eye caps are closing.

Why am I getting sleepy? Is this shock? I don't want to die of shock aga….

I lost consciousness before finishing that thought.

**Author's note: This is my first ever fanfic. So it must be pretty shit, if you have any criticism, please leave it in the reviews. If you are confused about why Kazuma fell unconscious, it is kind of a workaround a little plothole that would have happened**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

I woke up to a faint light passing through my eyelids.

"Kazuma! Wake up! Are you okay?" I heard a voice calling out to me. What happened?

"That was a scary fall, Aqua, quick, heal Kazuma!"

Oh yeah, we fell. What the hell was that fall? I fell unconscious before even hitting the ground.

I opened my eyes and looked at my surroundings. It was a room overgrown with vines, just like the place we were just in, speaking of that, there was a large hole above us from where light came through, that is the way we fell, huh. It looked too high to climb. Darkness, Aqua and Megumin had gathered around me, and there was a weird corridor that looked too smooth to be natural.

"He is waking up! Hey, Kazuma, are you okay? You are the most brittle and weakest here, so we thought you had died." Megumin said.

"Yes, I thought even though the flowers softened the impact, The weak Kazuma would have still died due to some stupid reason like shock or landing badly." Aqua added to Megumin's , she is talking like that even though she was the reason we fell.

"I am okay...Also, stop calling me weak, do you want to hurt my ego? I am gonna have to punish you if that is the reason."

"Punish? How could you punish us?"

"Hmm, I could Drain all of your mana in the morning or donate to an organization that is against the Axis Cult."

""...Don-Don't be unreasonable Kazuma, w-we would never do something like that!""

"That is cruel...as expected of Kazuma." The 3rd weirdo said. That is probably the 5th time that phrase has been used today, just _what _is expected of me?

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up

"Huh?" I turned back, seeing a yellow blur. It disappeared as soon as I looked at it.

"What is it, Kazuma?" Megumin looked at me questioningly

"Did you see that?"

"See what?"

I would say some cliche line like 'It must have been my imagination', but that never turns out good.

"There was a yellow blur. I am not sure what exactly it was but it looked like a… flower."

"Kazuma, no need to worry about such things, it was probably a non dangerous flower"

"Yeah, and I thought it was something serious."

Ah, yes. Somehow, I completely forgot this ridiculous world has sentient plants. It was probably one of those.

"Ok, then, where are we?"

"We don't know, it seems like we are underground, but I am not sure where we are exactly."

Darkness said while fidgeting. She really enjoyed the fall, didn't she?

"I can't use my magic here…. Kazuma, lead the way to the exit."

"Why are you telling me that? I don't know where we're either! There may not even be an exit!"

"Kazuma! Don't say stuff like that! I don't want to be stuck here!"

The person who was responsible for the problem in the first place said.

"You made us fa-"

"If I'm stuck here, I might as well just use **[Explosion] **right now and end it all, right? I may as well end my Crimson journey with a Crimson bang, right? _Darkness blacker than black, darker than dark…."_

My words were interrupted by psychotic muttering

"Wait, no! Stop! Megumin, are you that crazy?!"

"**[Explosion]!**"

I couldn't reach her before she used the spell.

So this is how I die for real, huh?

Aqua can't revive me if she is dead too.

There was this one big concern looming over me:

I died a virgin.

My whole vision was encompassed by red light

**Part 2**

I appeared in the ever so familiar black room.

"EHH!? Kazuma-san? What happened? How did you die? I wasn't looking at you. Wait, you are here too?"

'You'? Who does she me-

Oh.

I looked around, and the rest were here too.

"That felt….amazing." Darkness was quivering in her seat.

"So, this is what Kazuma sees every time he dies, neat."

The suicidal maniac said.

"..." I stared at her

"..."

"..."

"Why are you staring at me?"

"Oh god do I wonder! It might have been something to do with the whole Kamikaze thingy. You really are crazy, aren't you?!"

"Dying with dignity is way better than rotting in those caves, waiting and sitting until the all seeing void consumes us!"

"There was an obvious man-made corridor in there! I was just joking, why was your first instinct killing everyone and not, you know, looking back?!"

"Ah. Kazuma, you don't joke about things like that"

"You were the person who killed all of us!"

"That happens to everyone, Kazuma."

"..."

"I am really sorry"

"..."

"What? I said sorry!"

"Megumin, we are gonna talk about this later."

I looked at the others, Darkness was still doing Darkness things.

Aqua appeared to be thinking about something. I didn't know she could do that.

"So….Do I go to Heaven now that I'm dead?"

"You can't come back until you kill the Demon King, Aqua-sama!"

"Then what is going to happen to me?"

She asked nervously.

Eris paused for a while. After a minute, she said this:

"You are going to get erased from history."

"Eh? What does that mean? I have never heard of such a thing!"

"That's because...no one remembers them."

"I don't want to get forgotten and erased! What will my followers do?! You are cruel! You are all cruel!"

"Aqua-sama! I am just listening to what the higher-ups say! I want to help you, but-"

"Erisssss! Waaaaaaaaa! Try harder!"

"I am trying Aqua-sama! How did you die anyway?"

"We-we-we-we" she sobbed "Waaaaaa!"

I walked towards Eris and told her the story of the Creeper

"So, that is how it happened…..say, that mountain wasn't named Ebot, was it?"

"You know about it? Yes, it was. Why are you asking?"

She seemed a little anxious.

Scratch that.

She seemed really anxious.

"Tha-that isn't supposed to happen, I thought they took care of it….." Eris was walking briskly back and forward.

"Wait…." I heard a voice say from my back…."Is she Eris-sama?! I apologize!" She immediately bowed down.

"No need to bow down to me! I'm sorry we met in such circumstances."

"Actually, I am glad we met like this!"

She said some weird things again.

"Eris-sama, what do you mean by 'that isn't supposed to happen'?"

"I mean...the mountain isn't supposed to be there!"

"Huh?"x4

Everyone, including the crying Aqua and Megumin who was distracted with comforting her said in unison.

"What does that mean?"

Megumin asked.

"It's an error, a glitch, it's not supposed to be in this world!"

"Anyway, I got to talk with someone, please stay here for the moment."

She briskly walked away and disappeared, as if she teleported.

"What the heck does that mean? 'This world'?" Megumin said.

"I don't get it either, it's probably some God stuff."

"Also, I noticed, does she pad her chests?"

Darkness, who heard this, immediately stood up and walked towards Megumin.

"What are you saying about Eris-sama?! This is heresy!"

"Didn't you see it? Those chests didn't look natu-"

Her words were interrupted by Darkness pouncing on her.

I walked up to the crying Aqua.

"Hey, Aqua, what does she mean by 'erased from history'?"

"It means not only will die, but I will be forgotten by everyone, and will be erased from history, I won't exist, my soul will be shattered." she said in a completely monotone voice.

That's kinda….cruel.

I'm feeling a little sad for her, getting erased from history is probably very rough.

Me too, If I die for good, I either go to Heaven, or get reincarnated.

Heaven seems really boring, and there's no guarantee that my life will be good if I get reincarnated, I'll also lose all my memories.

And I'll never get to see the others again.

I might see them after we get reincarnated, but we won't be the same.

I might not see them at all.

I can't die right now, it can't end right now.

I need to find a way, I need to stay **[Determined]**.

Suddenly, I felt something was some kind of power surging through me. It wasn't mana, it felt different. In front of me, two buttons appeared.

They were both orange, one said 'Continue' while the other said 'Reset'.

"Eh?"

Megumin heard me and asked:

"What is it, Kazuma?" She paused for a bit before seeing the buttons "What are those?"

"I don't know either."

"What are you two talking about...What are those?"

""We don't know either""

"Eh?" Aqua groggily lifted herself "What are those?"

"""We don't know either."""

….Well, at least I didn't have to ask.

"What should we do?" Darkness asked.

"Well we sho-"

"Press it!" Megumin said.

"Yes! Let me press it!" Aqua said, forgot about all of her worries and stood up. Does she have the memory of a goldfish?

"No! We have been over this! You shouldn't press random buttons! Oi Darkness, help me!"

"Got it!"

Darkness grabbed both of their hands.

"Let go of me, Darkness! Or I'll have to punish you!"

"I, a crusader, shall never fall to such threats!"

"**[God Blow]**!"

She punched her in the guts.

"_Ahhh~_" Darkness made a sound that I didn't like.

Did she punch her friend just to press a shiny button?!

"Punch me as much as you can, but I will not falter!" She was still grabbing tight to their hands.

"**[Bind]**!" I used my spell before it got too dangerous.

"Free us you heathen! Or I shall unleash my Explosion spell right here!"

"And kill us a second time? Is that even possible?"

"Do you want to find out?"

"No." I stretched my hand towards her and activated my **[Drain Touch] **skill.

"Aaaaa! Stop! Please! I promise! I won't do anything!"

I stopped, not because of her pleas, but because I had already drained enough mana from her.

"From now on, I shall drain you every morning so you won't be able to use **[Explosion]**."

"I apologize, so please spare me."

"You will not see Mercy." I said calmly.

"Kazuma, did you really have to tie me up too?" Darkness said while breathing heavily.

"You were a necessary sacrifice, Darkness. I had no other choice"

"Anyway, what are we gonna do with the button? I mean, we aren't just gonna leave it there, right?"

"I don't know exactly,we should probably wait for Eri-"

"I am back! Sorry for the wait!" Suddenly, Eris appeared behind them, probably carrying some great news.

"AHHH!" I got startled by this, losing my balance and tripping back, I tried to find something to grab before I fell.

And I did, but unfortunately, it was not anyone's breasts, instead, it was one of the buttons I tried to stop others from pressing, specifically, the 'Continue' button.

"Ah."

**Part 3**

I woke up to a faint light passing through my eyelids.

"Kazuma! Wake up! Are you okay?" I heard a voice calling out to me. What happened?

"That was a scary fall, Aqua, quick, heal Kazuma!"

"He is waking up!"

What happened?

This sounds awfully familiar.

"Kazuma! We are back! I am saved, I won't get erased from history!" Aqua said.

Back? I stood up and looked around myself, and sure enough, we were back in the room that we died in, it looked just like before, and not like a place exploded into smithereens just moments ago, that doesn't make sense, I am sure Megumin exploded it, the room couldn't have resisted that.

"What are you talking about, Aqua?" Megumin questioned her sudden excitement.

"Aqua, calm down, what happened?" Darkness asked

"Don't you really remember? Did you hit your head on a rock or something? Kazuma, you remember right? We died and came back, you remember, right?." Aqua answered.

"Died? We didn't die though. Aqua, are you okay?" Megumin asked.

"Yeah….I remember, you killed us, don't try to act innocent!"

"I did? Why would I kill you?!"

"Don't try to act like you lost your memories!"

"Kazuma, calm down, what are you talking about? When did that happen? I don't remember such a thing." Darkness said.

"You don't remember? Then that means….Do you two have amnesia?" Aqua said.

"Can you tell us what exactly happened?" Megumin said.

"...You really don't remember? Aqua, you remember right?"

"Yes, After we fell, Megumin casted her magic here and killed all of us." she answered.

"Wait, what? Why would I do something like that?!"

"Because you are crazy! That's why!"

"Oi! Who are you calling crazy?"

"You! You are!"

"Ho-ho! Then I will sh-Aahhhhh." I used **[Drain Touch]** on her before she finished, I am not making the same mistake again. I drained most of her mana, but left her with enough that she could walk.

"Aaaaa…. Sorry Kazuma, I won't do it again, will you give me my mana back?

"You'll get your mana back when you need it, and you don't need it right now."

Darkness was unusually silent, she looked like she was thinking about something.

"...You are thinking about how good the explosion must have felt, right?"

"...I am not!"

"...Anyway, After that, when we were in Purgatory, two buttons appeared and I ended up pressing one." I decided to leave out most of the details to not complicate things.

"And we ended up back here, right?" Darkness asked.

"Yeah, why don't you remember it unlike us" I asked back to her, really, why can me and Aqua remember while Darkness and Megumin can't? Is it a glitch? Wait, Eris also called this mountain a glitch, that it isn't supposed to exist, what does that mean? Maybe it has something to do with that.

"Who cares?! We need to get out of this place right now! I will go crazy if I don't use **[Explosion]** soon!"

"How much crazier can you get? Also, it hasn't even been a day!"

"If I don't use it once a day, I will go _boom_! Let's just leave!" She said.

"I won't let you use it anyway after we get out."

"I'll find a way!"

"Ok, if you insist, let's just move on." I shrugged.

"Look, Megumin, there is a corridor right there, we aren't trapped here!" I said in a sarcastic tone while pointing at the corridor entrance.

"I can see that, I'm not blind!"

"I doubt that"

We all proceeded through the corridor, at the end of it, there was an archway to our left, this really is man-made, isn't it? We entered the archway, which led us to a dark room.

It was dark, but I could see the room with my skill, it was very indistinct though. There was something that looked like a spotlight shining on the middle, and in that light….

"Howdy! I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!"

...stood a talking flower with yellow petals.

**Author's note: I hope you enjoy the chapter! It's pretty short, but I felt like ending it right there for some reason, it had **_**nothing**_ **to do with me being lazy or anything. Anyways, as for the reviews:**

**Forum Explorer: I'm gonna try to fix that. Thanks for the compliment.**

**SilentXD7: It's gonna be a while until we reach those, and for the question: ...perhaps.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

….Is it supposed to talk?

Moving plants are seen as normal in this world. But a talking one? The only one I have seen were Tranquility girls, and it certainly doesn't look like one. Is the ecosystem here different? That means this place is big enough to have its own ecosystem, which the thought of doesn't really make me happy.

I looked back at my party members to see they were equally confused.

"You're new to the Underground, aren'tcha? Golly, you must be so confused." The Talking Flower, apparently named Flowey, said. What kind of name is that? A pun?

Then It muttered something under its breath, if it breathed in the first place. Presumably something we weren't supposed to hear. But using my recently learned **[Lip Reading] **skill, I could make out what the flower said.

"You died in the first room, after all. This will be very interesting"

…..

"**[Tinder]."** a fire appeared out of my fingers, illuminating our surroundings.

Suddenly, the world around us became more focused on us, and a green heart appeared in front of my chest. I could see that the flower was starting to look uneasy.

Eh?

"Eh, what are these?" Megumin asked. She also had a heart in front of her chest, but hers was red.

I looked to see the others had the same hearts too, but Darkness' was yellow and Aqua's was a shining gold color.

The Flower looked at Aqua's heart with interest for a moment, then said:

"Those are your SOULs, the very culmination of your being!"

"Do souls….look like this?" I whispered at Aqua.

"These are what souls without form look like, Ghosts and wraiths have gained a form, and Gods give human souls form when they die. But this is what souls normally look like. That flower is right." She whispered back.

"Then why did they appear right now? Is the flower sucking out our souls or something?"

"I don't feel anything like that...Wait, I remember hearing something about monsters that could see your souls, apparently, your souls appear when fighting them."

"Are you done whispering with your buddy?"

…..

I brought the fire closer to him.

"Hey there, buddy, what are you gonna do with that fire?" The Flower looked distressed and leaned back a little bit.

"Kazuma! Don't be heartless! You aren't gonna kill an innocent flower, right?"

"That thing is not innocent!"

"Hey there, bud, you must be confused, I have no ill-will towards you! Here, let me show it!"

It rose one of its petals, and some kind of green pellet came out of it.

"Here, these are friendliness pellets, it helps you increase some of your HP! What does HP stand for? HOPE of course!"

HP? Didn't that stand for "Hit Points"? Also, isn't that a bit too gamey?

*Wasn't your world very game-like as well?

Huh? What was that?

I looked around myself, seeing nothing, I could have sworn I heard a voice.

Anyways, whoever that was, they are kinda right, the world we are in is very game-like, so HP may really exist.

"Are you done looking around?" Flowey asked "If so, then let's continue. C'mon! Grab as many of them as you can!"

The pellets shot towards us. I stepped to the side and went around them. Aqua tried to grab all of the pellets, when she touched them, they disappeared. I noticed that the minor scratches and bruises from the fall healed, looks like she forgot to heal herself.

The pellets she couldn't catch were caught by Megumin, whom they had the same effect on.

Darkness was reluctant to catch them after seeing that they had healing properties. So she pretended to miss some of them.

"See? No need to distrust me!"

"Kazuma! See? We were right! You just tried to burn an innocent flower!"

"Hey! Why are you so inclined to trust it? This is exactly what happened with the Tranquility girls!"

"Kazuma, I get why you don't trust it, it's our job as adventurers to subjugate monsters, but let's listen to it for a while. We just fell here, we may need some kind of guide." Darkness said something surprisingly wise.

Flowey perked up at the word 'monsters' but I didn't think much of it.

"...Ok then, I'll listen."

"Thanks for being reasonable, friend! I can see why you don't trust me, you must be very confused. This must be your first time seeing a talking flower after all. I mean you no harm, here, catch these!" summoned pellets that looked similar to the ones before.

"These are also called Friendliness pellets, but these are a different kind! They increase your LV! It means 'LOVE'! Monsters share these with each other. Now go, grab as many of them as you can!" It shot the white pellets towards us.

Something is off, it is really suspicious. LV? Didn't that stand for Level?

"Wait….Doesn't LV stand for 'Level'?" Megumin voiced the same question I had.

"Aqua, wait!" I yelled out.

Aqua tried to grab all of the Friendliness pellets, as soon as she caught one, she screamed and crouched down, holding her hand.

"What did you do to Aqua?!" Darkness asked, quickly running in front of her, blocking the rest of the pellets from hitting Aqua.

I could hear demonic laughter from where the flower was. I looked at it, and its face had contorted into something terrifying. I knew it!

Aqua was still balled up on the ground, clutching her hand.

"You idiot! In this world, it is KILL or be KILLED. Why would someone help you if it doesn't benefit them?"

"I told you we couldn't trust it! Why don't you ever listen to me?!"

The flower continued laughing.

"You should have listened to your friend."

The flower summoned those white pellets all around us, trapping us.

"Don't worry Kazuma! I got this!"

Darkness started running into all of the bullets, she was smiling.

"What are you doing? You will kill yourself, aren't you getting hurt? Why are you doing that?" The Flower asked. It looked at her as if it was observing her abilities, and then had a mild look of shock and confusion on its face.

"I will not let you hurt my comrades! You vile creature! You might grab me with your vines and have my body, but you will never have my heart!"

After she finished running into all of the bullets, she stood, panting heavily.

"Is this all you have?"

"Just...What're you?" The flower was shocked at Darkness' high defence.

Ignoring them, I walked towards Aqua, who had keeped her position, and Megumin, who was patting Aqua on the back. She squeaked and stood up, letting go of her hand. She looked really angry.

Darkness and the flower stopped whatever they were doing and looked at Aqua.

"How dare you?! How dare you hurt a goddess like me?! You vile creature! I'm gonna drain all the water inside of you and let you shrivel up! A garden weed like you dare touch me?! The Great Goddess of Water! I'm going to pluck out all of your petals one by one and I will…."

…..It looks like she will continue that for a while.

I looked at her hand where the pellet hit, I couldn't see any wounds. If I squinted enough I could see a small cut on her hand, the type you would get from a paper.

…

Was she screaming that much for a papercut?!

The Flower went into the ground and disappeared. Aqua didn't stop screaming though, as if she thought the flower was still there.

"What's happening here?" I could hear a female voice and footsteps coming the way we were facing.

From the other side of a room, some kind of monster came in. it looked to be a female, She was humanoid but had the features of a goat. Surprisingly, she didn't look creepy at all. Instead, she had an air of elegance around herself. She was wearing a purple robe with a weird symbol on it.

"Oh, I am terribly sorry, Are you hurt? Sorry for not protecting you."

She said while looking at Aqua, who had finally finished screaming.

She was kind appearance wise, and I didn't feel any ill intent from her, but I'm not sure if we could trust her.

"Huh?" Aqua said.

"Let me heal your injuries, my child."

"I can heal my injuries myself, after all, I'm the extravagant goddess of water. **[Sacred Highness Heal]!**" Aqua said before using a legendary tier spell, which most people wouldn't even _see_, let alone lose their entire lives, on a papercut.

"...Impressive, to be able to cast healing spells at such a young age, especially for a human."

"Huh? Of course! I'm the mighty goddess of water, Aqua! Of course I can cast healing magic!" She said as if she forgot completely about that flower from before.

"Who are you? Isn't it a bit weird for you to heal someone without even telling them your name?" I asked.

"Oh, sorry for not introducing myself earlier, My name is Toriel, the gatekeeper of the Ruins. I come here everyday to check here for any humans that fall down here. You are the first humans to fall down here in a long time."

"And why should we trust you? For all we know you want to eat us."

"That's terrible! I would never do something like that."

"...That's what the flower said."

"That flower has been tormenting the monsters here for ages, so his actions should not reflect on other monsters. I see why you don't trust me, so please talk it over with your companions. I will be in the next room." Saying that, she walked through the gateway she came from and disappeared

"Kazuma was right about the flower, so I'll listen to his judgement this time, sorry for trusting in that flower." Darkness, who had been silent the whole conversation said.

"Kazuma is the leader, and he is surprisingly reliable, I will do what you want to." Megumin said.

"I don't care! I just want to kick that flower's stem!" Aqua broke the mood.

So guess it is upto me to decide.

I didn't detect any ill intent with my skill, but I'm a little hesitant about trusting random monsters after that murderous flower thing that happened a while ago. And this is not the first time trusting a monster turned out bad for me, she is probably dangerous too.

*You can trust her, she is mom, not all monsters are like that flower or the ones you have met, these ones are kind and compassionate.

The same voice from before ringed in my head. I looked around once again, seeing nothing.

What? Is that my subconscious talking to me? Am I going crazy?

*I don't think I'm your subconscious, but I might be, but I would rather call myself a ghost. Anyways, I vote for 'go with her'.

Who the hell even are you?

*Good question. I used to live here a while ago, until I didn't.

…..

"Aqua, exorcise me."

"What are you talking about….Hey! There's a ghost besides you! Did you befriend a ghost while I was not looking? Hmm….It seems to be one of a young child, around the age of 11. They died from ingesting buttercups…."

"Ok, let's move on." I said while quickly stepping towards the archway Toriel went through. I'm getting really creeped out staying here. I would rather go with a potentially dangerous monster than deal with a ghost haunting me. Darkness and Megumin followed me too.

"Hey! Don't leave me behind!"

**Part 2**

We went into the second room, Which was brighter than the last one and was made of bricks, it had a pathway which lead to a an outline of a square made out of leaves in the middle which had a circle inside of it, and beyond that were a thicker patch of red leaves separating two staircases which lead to the same gateway, it really looked beautiful.

Did Toriel build this herself, or were there a society of monsters working on this? I hope it's the former, since the latter would mean this place must be really big.

*Sorry to break it to you, but it is the latter. Sorry.

….

Toriel was standing in front of the gateway, waiting for us.

"Ah, you've decided to follow me, thank you. Now, follow me into the next room. I will teach you how things work around here." She said while smiling. She went into the next room.

* I told you you could trust her.

….

*Apparently, I can't get far away from you, I'm stuck to you.

…..

*I'm not that happy about it either.

"Aqua, can you exorcise the ghost?"

*Wait! No! I wanna know what is going on here, the last thing I remember was dying, I want to know why I'm back as a ghost.

"Hmm… they don't have any ill-will towards us, they are saying they will leave once this is all over." She looked behind my back and said "I, the great goddess of water, shall forgive you! I will not exorcise you until you reach your goal and pass on naturally!"

Aren't ghosts unable to move on because of some unfinished business or grudge or something? Then is the reason for you not being able to move on is because you don't know why you can't move on?

*...Probably, maybe there was a wish I had that I forgot!

Hey, that sounds suspiciously like a certain anime.

"What are you two talking about? Is there a ghost haunting Kazuma? Is it holding onto some past grudge and the only way for it to achieve vengeance is through possessing Kazuma?! Then that's really cool!" Megumin said.

"That's not cool at all, you chuuni!"

"Is the ghost possessing you and making you do vile things?! Is it going to make you rip apart my clothing and have your way with me until I'm broken?! You may have my body, but you will never have my heart!" Darkness said.

*_...Neither me or you can understand what she is saying._

I'm sorry.

"That's just your fantasy, the ghost is disturbed by you."

*_You told her the truth, she seems a little disappointed._

I could very well see the disappointment myself, you didn't have to tell me.

*The extra narration is very helpful.

"Anyway, let's move on. I want to get this ghost out of my mind as soon as possible." I said while going up the stairs, my companions following me

*That hurt my feelings.

Shut up.

*That's rude.

Ok, we'll solve your problem later. Just let's go through this.

*Finally, thanks for your kindness.

We moved into the next room.

*You are actually starting to make progress, this room took around 1500 words less than the last one.

What?

*What?

…..Anyways. In the next room,there was a path leading to a gateway which was closed, left of the gateway, there was a sign which had weird letters on them. The right side of the room had 6 pressure plates with 2 on each side and 2 in the middle, slightly offset. On the wall, there was a switch.

Toriel was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for us.

"The Ruins revolve around puzzles, you'll see them everywhere, so get used to them. I'll solve this puzzle for you."

Wait, what kind of place is here? What was the point of these puzzles?

*Monsters tend to have a liking towards puzzles, nobody knows why this is.

"I can solve this puzzle myself!" Megumin proclaimed.

No.

"Huh? Do you want to do it yourself? But you don't know the solution, my child."

"First of all, who are you calling 'child'?! I am well over 14! And second of all, us Crimson demons are known for our intelligence! This puzzle will be a piece of cake."

"You didn't give me any names, and 14 is young compared to an old lady like me." Toriel chuckled at Megumin, which just made her angrier.

How old is she anyway?

*Around a thousand years old.

...Well, she is a monster, so it isn't that weird. As for how you know that….I'll ask that later.

*I lived here for a while.

"I'm going to show you how child-like I'm with my spell…"

"If you do that, I will drain you everyday and won't give you back the mana. _Ever_."

"-I am sorry"

Toriel looked at us with confusion.

"Toriel-san, please ignore her, I would be glad if you could solve the puzzle for us." I said

"Right…" She walked over the plates on the sides, while ignoring the ones in the middle. She then flicked the yellow switch on the wall, and the door opened. Does she do this every time she needs to go in and out of here?

"Puzzles like this are common in the Ruins, while I will help you, I can't solve all of them myself, I will teach you how to solve puzzles for yourself in the next room."

She then walked into the next room.

"Don't you think she is a bit too nice for a monster? Monsters are supposed to attack us until we are no longer able to stand, and then capture us, bring us to their lairs and then defile us until they get bored of us, and throw us into the wild?" Darkness said excitedly.

"Not everyone in this world fits into your fantasies, degenerate-san."

"_Ahnn~~_"

…..

*You somewhat agree with her.

Isn't she a bit too kind? She seems a little suspicious. I mean, everyone in this world has some kind of deficiency, and she is a monster on top of that, maybe monsters are more normal than humans.

I went towards the writing on the wall, it had some unintelligible letters on it.

*You...can't read it?

I can't read monsterish, why would I know how to?

*Guess that makes sense...Here, let me read it for you. _Only the fearless may proceed,_ _brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle route._

Huh, is that some cryptic hint or just random poetry? Toriel only pressed the pressure plates on the sides, so it may have been a hint to the puzzle.

"I could solve this puzzle myself! Don't underestimate the intelligence of the Crimson Demons!" Megumin yelled at me.

"...Megumin, is it that time of the month?"

"Wha-What is this man saying?!"

"Megumin, you don't need to hide it, it is normal for girls your age to start having those." Aqua said.

"It's not that! What are you saying?! Why would you think that?"

"You've just been acting a bit….moody."

"What does that mean? Tell me and I will consider not exploding you."

"That! You have already blown us up once! And you are still threatening to do it!" Aqua said.

I knew she didn't react well to unexpected things, but she

"I haven't blown you up though..._yet_."

"...You don't have enough mana for that, I drained you a while ago."

"_Hehehe~_."

"**[Drain Touch].**" I brought my hand closer to Megumin.

"Sorry! Sorry! I was joking! Please don't touch me!"

I, ignoring her pleads, drained more mana from her, and I didn't stop with a little. I drained her until she fell unconscious.

"Let's get moving."

"Ho-How cruel….." Darkness said.

"Kuzuma."

*That was a little bit….

"Hey! Aqua, you saw first hand how she killed us, she could have killed us this time too!"

"..."

I lifted Megumin on my shoulders.

"Ok, we're moving on."

Saying that, we went into the second room.

**Author's note:Thanks for reading! New chapters will be released every 3 weeks and will be around 2500-3500 words. As for the chapter: Was Megumin a little bit too OOC this chapter? I may have gone a bit too far on the asshole part of her personality. Thanks to BetweenIandGirl for editing.**

**Reviews:**

**Yann0406: Here you go.**

**Whitefri2z: Thanks! I really appreciate that.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The next room looked like a corridor going to the right, it was divided into 3 sections by 2 streams of some kind of running water. Bridges connected these sections, there were 3 switches on the walls. The bridges were blocked by spikes, which probably are retracted by solving the puzzle.

The walls had vines growing on them just like the other rooms, why are there a lot of vines here? Hasn't this place been taken care of for a century?

Toriel was standing in front of us.

"I want you to solve…." Toriel started saying something, but trailed off after seeing Megumin on my back.

"Did she get hurt?! Sorry, I was too careless, I shouldn't have-"

"She didn't get hurt, sShe's just...sleep deprived and collapsed from exhaustion, she hasn't slept for a while." I could feel Aqua and Darkness looking at me like I was garbage.

I can't just tell her what happened, I mean, she would probably eat us even if she was not a monster.

"Oh…then we should bring her to my home quickly, she can get rest there."

That's kind of you, but please, don't offer that to a terrorist. But I'll go with it.

I nodded along.

*You're quick to trust someone you thought could eat you.

You told me I could trust her, and if there's one thing I trust more than myself, it's the voices in my head!

*Good thinking, that'll get you far in life.

Well it certainly got me farther than you.

*...

"I wanted you to solve this puzzle for yourself, but seeing she's exhausted, I can teach you these things later." Toriel said before flicking the marked switches which retracted the spikes and opened the way to the other end of the room.

...I feel like we wouldn't have such a hard time solving the puzzle.

"Follow me, I will bring you to my home."

"Will you bring us to your lair and then torture us unti-"

"She will wake up sooner or later, don't worry about her." I put my hand on Darkness' mouth before she could finish what she was saying.

Toriel looked concerned about Darkness, but nodded along.

"In the next room, I'm going to teach you how to deal with monsters."

"You don't need to teach us that, we're adventurers, we have fought monsters before."

"Adventurer? What is that? But no, I'm going to teach you how to deal with monsters peacefully. You should not fight with monsters, they are innocent."

"Innocent?! You have been saying that for a while but monsters are not innocent, did you know what those frogs did to me?! They covered me in their bodily fluids! They defiled me, a goddess! They defiled a goddess! How could you say those monsters are innocent?! Also, that flower from before! That vile garden weed tricked me with its sweet words and struck me! And you say monsters are innocent?!"

"We-We-Well…." Toriel was at a complete loss of words, she staggered a little, and she had a blush on her face…..Wait! Don't get the wrong idea!

*_She got the wrong idea._

"Mon-"

"Yes! It's a monster's job to defile Crusaders in the frontlines! They capture females and use them as mere toys!

"Wha-Wha-What?" Toriel managed to mutter out, she had lost all of the cool air surrounding her.

*Heh.

Is it really good to be laughing at someone else's misfortune?

*You are not the one to judge, are you?

What does that mean?

***I can see you for who you are, Satou Kazuma.**

I felt a shiver run up my spine.

Hey, that was creepy, don't do that.

*Hah! You should have seen yourself! It was hilarious!

….

You just meant you can read my memories, right?

*Yeah, basically.

That explains how you know a lot of stuff I haven't told you about me, but still, Chuuni.

Maybe asking Aqua to exorcise you really was the right choice.

"Ahhh!" Toriel ran out of the room.

"...You scared her off with your perverse fantasies, degenerates." I said.

"Perverse?!" Aqua screamed.

"You didn't see anything weird with what you said?" I asked.

"No! I was just telling her the truth! You are the perverted ones for thinking otherwise!" Aqua said.

…..She's beyond redemption.

"It's a monster's job to do that! Just as how it's a noble's job to take advantage of a girl with their wealth! It's not perverse at all!" Darkness said.

"Oi, apologise to all the nobles and monsters out there, I feel bad for them."

"'Follow the path.' What does that mean?" I looked back to see Aqua reading the sign I forgot about.

"Hm? Let me look." Darkness said.

"...I can't read this, is it in an ancient language? It doesn't look like the language you and Kazuma deciphered."

'Deciphered'?

"It's a different language than any of the ones you know! Of course, I, a goddess, know it. It seems familiar to me, but I can't quite remember where It's from."

I walked closer to the sign. I examined it, but it was in the same language as the one in the room before, so I could not make out what it said.

Hey, can you read it for me?

*Ok, '_Follow the path'. _Exactly what Aqua said.

Huh, is it a hint to the puzzle just like the last one? The switches Toriel marked were where the paths led. Whoever put these up must be a big fan of cryptic clues.

"It's probably a hint or something, let's just go."

We crossed over the bridges with Megumin on my back and came in front of the entrance. I noticed Aqua wasn't behind me, and turned around to look for her.

I could see Aqua trying to press the switch Toriel didn't press, but it didn't move, she repeatedly tried pulling it, but it wouldn't budge.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to pull this switch, but it won't move"

"Stop fiddling with it, you are going to get us all kid, if you get caught in a trap, I'm not saving you."

"Let….me...press….it…." She said while pulling the switch with all her strength.

We moved on without her, that way, we won't all die.

The next room was smaller compared to the last, and had a dummy in the middle and Toriel was nowhere to be seen. Did she really run away?

I approached the dummy, it didn't seem like there was anything unusual with it, it just looked like a normal dummy with no arms.

*_ATK 0, DEF 0._

_*_ _A cotton heart and a button eye, you are the apple of my eye. _

….How did you get that rhyme instantly? Also, stats? Aren't stats left for alive things? And how do you even know them?

*Not to brag or anything, but I'm unnaturally talented with the art of the words.

…..

*You get a lot of free time when you're like this, so I have time to spend on stuff like these.

And about the stats?

*Oh, I can't say that, I have to preserve my mystery.

Chuuni.

Suddenly, I heard a cracking noise coming from the back, then heard some kind of metal get completely snapped off.

"Ah!" I heard Aqua's voice.

I sighed.

"Aqua, what is happening?! Did you manage to pull the lever and it activated some kind of heinous death trap?!" Darkness said.

"No! Nothing happened!" She came into the room, hands behind her back.

"What are you holding behind you?"

"Ehhh...Nothing." she said.

*_Aqua lied as naturally as she thought._

"Aqua, show it to me, or I'll use **[Steal]** on you."

"It's nothing, nothing, don't worry! Wait, what's that?" She pointed at the dummy.

"It's being possessed by an undead!"

"Those tricks won't work on me!" I said.

"No! I'm serious! Look! **[Turn Undead!]**!" A bright beam of energy shot out from her outstretched hand and went straight towards the dummy.

When it hit the dummy, a light enveloped it, and I could feel something going out of it.

"You can't distract me with that! **[Steal]**!" I outstretched my hand towards Aqua, and a yellow metal switch appeared in my hand. I almost lost balance and dropped Megumin, but managed to stay up.

I knew it.

"Did you pull until you broke it, even though it didn't budge?" I asked Aqua while slowly walking towards her, dropping the metal switch.

She timidly nodded.

I sighed again.

*_The urge to facepalm increases._

"...We are just going to leave this and go on, okay?"

"...Yes."

As we went past the dummy, I took a glance at it to see its eyes somehow felt more lifeless.

**Part 2**

"_Ahhn~_Kazuma! This feels so good!" Darkness said.

"Did you find the solution yet?" I replied.

"Not yet! Just wait!" She said while rolling on the spikes.

"Kazuma, is this really okay? Can't we just move on?" Aqua asked me.

"Not until that pervert is satisfied."

"Wouldn't that take forever?"

"She must have some limits to her horniness, right?"

"I don't think so."

The next room we entered was another puzzle room, it had markings on the ground on one side and a bridge blocked by spikes on the other.

The sign on the wall said 'The western room is the eastern rooms blueprint.'. Which was probably a hint to the puzzle.

In fact, it was, I had already found the solution to the puzzle, the markings on the other side of the room showed the path we needed to take to avoid the spikes

I and Aqua were watching Darkness roll around the spikes 'trying to find the way'. I had let her do this, in case she somehow got satisfied and entered 'sage mode'. We could really use a sane party member in a situation like this.

*You are all weird.

Shut up, you make poems for dummies.

*Dummy poem making is an underappreciated art!

Apologise to all the artists in the world.

*Kazuma, art is subjective, anything can be art if you try enough.

Even explosions?

"_Ahh~ _Kazuma! This feels good! The feeling of dozens of tiny spikes poking into you all at once, and being watched in such a situation!"

"Ah? Wha-?" I could hear Megumin say from the wall I laid her against.

She took a moment to blink and shook her head. Then thought for a moment, staring at the ground.

"Hey, Megumin, you're awake?"

"Yeah, why was I asleep in the first place….oh."

"Oi, Kuzuma, you are lucky that I can't move, or you would have been dead a thousand times already." She said, glaring at me.

"Don't make me drain you again."

"...Kuzuma."

"I'm not joking."

"I don't doubt you would do that."

"Hey, you don't have the privilege to treat me like I'm scum when you didn't hesitate on killing all of us for a single minute."

"I didn't kill you! I don't know what you are talking about! Also, what the hell is Darkness doing?!" Megumin pointed at the general area Darkness was rolling around in, the areas with the real spikes, she was purposefully avoiding the places that had retracting spikes.

"...Enjoying herself."

"I can see that…. But why are you watching her? Are you perverted as her? I didn't know you enjoyed watching her do that kind of stu- "

"No! I don't! I have a reason!"

"And what is that?" She questioned me, still glaring at me.

"It's...complicated, but I let her indulge until she was satisfied."

"So you don't have a reason, understood."

That girl….

Before I could retort, I heard familiar sounding footsteps.

"Sorry, for leaving you, I came back, you must have been so confused." I could hear Toriel's voice.

Crap, this is bad.

*You don't listen, do you?

"Darkness! Stop! Come here!" I said in a hushed tone.

Darkness was too absorbed in rolling around like a puppy on deadly traps, so she didn't hear me.

Toriel came into the room.

"Ah, you must be stuck on this spike puzzle….what are you doing?" She said.

"You have come to defile me further after I am weak from laying bare in deadly traps?! You can have your way with my body, but you will never get my heart!" Darkness squirmed while saying her titular catchphrase.

*She has no originality, using the same phrase over and over. Even I could come up with better phrases.

I am not going to question you about that, for my own sanity's sake.

Toriel had a weird expression on her face, which could be described as a cross between confused and embarrassed.

Sorry.

"I am not going to hurt you, please stop rolling around in the spikes! And why the hel-heck are you just watching?! Make her stop!" She said.

*She swore?! Unacceptable! Unbelievable!

Do you really have to talk this much? You don't have to make One-liners every time something happens.

*I am the narrator, of course I need to do that.

Who are you narrating to?

*You? I am the narrator. I have to comment on everything, or I will die.

Aren't you already dead though? But whatever you say, buddy.

*If you have any criticism, just tell me, this is only my secon-first time narrating.

"Kazuma! You have been staring at that monster for a while, do you find that goat thing attractive?" Aqua said in a quiet tone.

"Mon-con" Megumin said with eyes that looked like they were looking at trash.

"Wait, what? I am not a mon-con! I just spaced out a bit!"

*She's 50 times older than you, are you really into grannies?

Wait, no! Just shut up for a while!

"C'mon! Do something fast! That monster has been looking at you for a minute now! Fix the mess you made!"

"'I made'?! Wouldn't Darkness be in fault for being so horny in the first place?!"

"You suggested that she roll around! Just do something!"

"Please! Make her stop! She is going to hurt herself! What's she even doing?!" Toriel walked towards Darkness, the spikes retracted before she touched them.

Guess I have no choice.

"**[Bind].**" I threw the mithril wire on my belt towards Darkness, it immediately entangled her, restraining her.

I could see her tumbling around, I didn't account for her keeping her momentum and continuing to roll around, she bounced along the room towards the direction of the next room, eventually going out of sight.

*Bye bye, Darkness-san!

I heard a crashing sound come from the next room, and a loud moan.

…

**Part 3**

After Darkness had got crushed by the chunks of the wall she broke with her body weight, Toriel ran to help her and got her out of the rubble, but she was too...'Satisfied' to respond. We woke her up with a little bit of water. Toriel commented on our ability to use magic, saying the humans who fell here didn't show any signs of magic.

This place must be really secluded if she didn't know about the outside human's abilities, that also confirmed the fact other humans had been here.

Toriel scolded Darkness, Aqua and me for doing such a dumb thing, Aqua said it was not her fault, but Toriel said something along the lines of 'Why didn't you stop them?', she excluded Megumin because she was asleep at that point, Megumin gave us an annoying smirk because of that fact.

Wait, there's something wrong with this, why are we getting scolded by a monster like she is our mom?!

*You get used to it.

When did we even start trusting her?! She still possibly wants to kill us!

*I doubt that.

I looked at the others, and they didn't seem to see anything wrong with this. Is this some kind of Stockholm syndrome?

Toriel took out two rectangular objects from her pockets and handed them to us after she finished her scolding.

"I will give you these before I go, I have already entered my number in them. I only have 2 besides mine, so I can't give all of you one."

"Hey Kazuma, what's that? It looks like a cool magical artifact." Megumin asked.

Upon further examination, it looked like an old, antique phone, it was a little bigger than my palm.

This is really old….Wait, no! How did she get this?

"Hey, Toriel-san, how did you get these?"

"The phones? I bought them."

Bought them? No, no, that doesn't make sense, I expected her to say something like 'I found it from the remains of an old civilization.'

Either a Japanese reincarnate came here and taught the residents of here how to make phones, or something is wrong.

"Tor-"

"Kazuma! You do know what this is, right?" Megumin asked while lightly punching me on the back.

"Kazuma, I'm curious as to what those are as well." Darkness said.

"You don't know what a phone is? Other humans that fell here knew what it was."

Other humans knew what it was? The only people who would know what these are the Japanese reincarnates.

"Megumin, Darkness, you don't know what this is, right? It's an invention from Kazuma's country, look, you press these buttons and….no signal, that makes sense, wait, Toriel's number!" Aqua was explaining Darkness and Megumin how a phone worked.

But it doesn't make sense, she didn't mention a few of the humans, she implied all of them knew what a phone was, were all of them japanese? No, that doesn't make sense either, if there were a lot of promising heroes lost in here, they would tell me before I took the quest.

Wait, do you know what a phone is?

*If you're implying me, then yes, I do.

Are you a japanese? Are they reincarnating little kids to fight the Demon King right now?

*Nope, not from Japan. Also, I'm pretty sure having child soldiers is a war crime. The gods don't seem like the war crime type of people.

But the reincarnates are only from Japan, or at least I think so….none of this makes any sense.

"Kazuma! Kazuma!" I could feel shaking on my back.

"Hey, Kazuma, are you fine?" Darkness said.

"Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking about something."

"Oh, just respond then, what were you thinking about? Anyways, try calling me to see if it works!" Aqua said.

"Yeah, yeah, ok." She wasn't even questioning a little bit about the phone.

The phone already had 2 numbers saved, one was named "Toriel" while the other was unnamed, I am guessing that is the phone Aqua. I called her, and the phone on her hand started ringing.

It feels a little nostalgic to get to use a phone again, even if it's older than me.

"See? This is how it works, Kazuma linked his magic item with me and the one on my hand started ringing from Kazuma's signal. Now, look." Aqua answered the phone.

"Who's it?" Aqua's voice came from the phone as well.

"Wait, was that Aqua's voice? Is it a communication item? It looks very cool! It would be very helpful for our thieving group!" Megumin, who was close enough to my head to hear Aqua's voice said. What is she even talking about?

"Yes, you can talk over long distances with these, I had one of these in my home country."  
"Why didn't you bring one then?" Megumin asked me.

"I lost it while coming here." I lied to Megumin.

"Ah, I see." Megumin said, she didn't look fully convinced.

"Now you understand how to use phones, I need to leave, Please stay here and don't get yourself hurt." Toriel said.

She then looked at Megumin.

"I can carry you to my home and you can get some rest there, do you want to come, little one?"

"Oi, who are you calling little? I swear, I will blow your entire livelihood up if you call me little again."

Toriel chuckled a little. Don't laugh, she isn't joking, she _will _do it if you provoke her enough.

"It's not nice to say such things."

Oh, really, wait, I can feel evil intent coming from my back.

"It's very rude, and some people might get scared if you say such things."

My shoulders are going to break, please stop.

"So, do you want to come with me, My child?"

"...No, I would rather be on Kazuma's back." Her voice cracked a little while saying that.

Her voice wasn't the only thing that cracked.

"Ah, I see, then I ought to be going, call me if there's any trouble, please stay here." Toriel looked at my face with a worried expression before leaving.

"Thank god she left before I lost my temper, am I wrong, Kazuma? Kazuma? Are you fine?"

After a minute of silence, Megumin said.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Kazuma!"

I almost met with Eris twice in the same day.

**Author's note: Sorry for the slow uploads, I just have writer's block and can't write very well. But alas, thank you for reading!**

**Reviews:**

**Nhehvnukl: Yeah, most of it comes ahead, but I feel like there wasn't enough plot reason for the first death, I'll work on that.**

**And a general thanks to all the positive reviews.**


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

We went further into this place after Aqua had healed my broken back, there were a lot of puzzles in this place. They featured exciting things such as spikes, falling blocks and rock pushing!

Aside from Aqua and Darkness messing up the solutions accidentally and not accidentally, we had solved these puzzles without much problem.

Toriel had called us to ask what kind of pie we prefer, she decided to make 'snails pie' after our indecisiveness

I hope it really isn't made out of snails.

Nothing ever goes my way, but I can hope.

Megumin seemed to be excited about it, I hope she thinks it isn't really made out of snails.

Wait, why did we accept we would eat it so easily?

We were in a room with another rock pushing puzzle right now. I was pushing the rocks towards the switches, I didn't let the others do it because I knew they would mess it up somehow, I had learned my lesson after the first few times.

They are really heavy! Do they really push these every time they need to cross here? Are monsters masochist like Darkness? It hurts to push these!

This isn't a puzzle! This is just menial work! There's no clever solution, and it isn't easy to execute! At least make these lighter! If you don't know how to design a proper puzzle, then go play Portal or something!

*What's a Portal?

Can't you just read my memories?

*I never digged into your bedroom memories, I don't want to be traumatized.

Thank you for that.

I tried using **[Create Earth]** to keep the pistons down, but it wouldn't do anything, these pistons would require something heavier than Darkness to push them down.

Damn, I hate this.

*Oh-ho, you called her that? I might tell her about it!

"What did Kazuma say?" Aqua said while leaning forwards like a gossiper from the place she was sitting, looking directly behind me, I guess she can hear and actually see the ghost.

Darkness and Megumin looked at her oddly.

*Nothing, just complaining about the weight.

"Ah, I see, it is expected for a Shut-in-NEET like him to struggle with that."

She is really getting on my nerves now.

"Are those rocks really? Do they hurt to push? If so, I can do it!"

"No, they're perfectly fine, maybe a bit heavy, ah, I think I finished with the second one."

Even if they hurt, Darkness would still find a way to mess it up, just like the spikes one, which in no way was my fault. It would be better for me to do it.

I was already out of breath after I was done with the second one, so I decided to lean against the rock and rest for a bit.

*Really?

Shut.

*Even I and 2 other kids who'll remain unnamed could do this one.

Shut.

*Are you really that weak?

I told you to shut up, I'll pour holy water on you the second I can.

*A tad bit aggressive, aren't you?

"They really are heavy, aren't they? I can help you if you want to." Megumin said while coming towards me.

"Look at the harem-NEET, why are you offering to do work for him?

"Can't you just split the water or something? Why are you making me do this work?"

"Why would I do it for such a Shit-NEET like you? You have to promise me you will pray to me 3 times a day, then I might consider doing that."

Yep, she's more trouble than it's worth.

Ignoring Aqua, I responded to Megumin:

"I'm not carrying you, you're capable of walking now."

"No, I'm really sorry! I didn't want to hurt you! I don't want to be carried anyway!"

She really seemed to regret doing that, unlike the explosion she apparently doesn't remember.

"Yes, yes, you are. But I would appreciate it if you didn't break my back. Really, Megumin, is it that time of the month again? Also, aren't you too weak now to actually help me?" I said.

I had forgiven her for this one, it is a little rude to judge a female when they are going through PSM.

"I said I'm not-"

"I smell something here." Aqua said out of nowhere.

"Wait, what? Am I reall-"

"There's a ghost close by." Aqua said while sniffing the air like a dog.

"I have a ghost on my back, of course there's one nearby."

*Me? I don't smell! I smell perfectly fine!

"It's kind of weird how you can say that so nonchalantly."

"No, it is not that, it's coming from the next room…." Aqua looked at the spike filled bridge, and started running towards the next room.

"Wait, where are you going?! How are you going to cross here?!"

"I'm a goddess of water, remember?"

What?

She then ran across the river, walking on the water.

…..

"Why didn't you do that earlier?!"

She was too far away to hear me, so I followed her.

I tried pushing the last rock needed to do this, I hope the solution is straight forward.

"Hey hey hey, what do you think you're doing?" A voice came from in front of me.

"Huh?"

"Hey, I'm here, at least look at someone when you're speaking to them, don't you think it's rude to push someone?" The source of the sound was from slightly below me. As I looked, I finally figured it out.

The source was very peculiar, one often thought not capable of speaking.

It was the rock

Damn it, I'm not bothering with this. It's probably a mimic or something.

I ran to the piston and stretched my hand out. It took a huge portion of my mana, but I used **[Create Earth]** to create a rock big enough to keep the pistons pushed down, But since I absorbed most of Megumin's mana, I was able to do it, it was harder for me than a skilled wizard, since elementary spells were too inefficient for purposes like this.

"Wait, aren't you supposed to ask me kindly? That's the moral of this puzzle, that sometimes you just have to ask kindly for something, the last one was the only one needed to open the bridge, you just needed to ask me so I could move on it and open the bridge!"

What?

What kind of stupid airhead made this?

I would like to speak with them.

Also, why does the rock speak?

You knew about this, didn't you?

*...

Screw you too!

"I'm going to blow this room up with dynamite later! Just wait!" I screamed while running to the next room.

"Dynam...Wait! You kept those things?! I thought I threw them all away!"

Ignoring Megumin, I entered the room running, ignoring the smell of rotten cheese.

"You foul being! How dare you badmouth me?!" Aqua said.

"sorry... i didn't mean to..." A white blob said quietly.

"Damn you ghost! I'm going to send you to the afterlife! You purposeless being!"

"you're right... i really am purposeless…"

"Don't agree so easily! Why are you even so depressed?! Nothing bad has even happened to you!"

"that's right…i'm trash..."

I was greeted by a goddess bullying a ghost.

"Hey! You're going to make me depressed too! Just stop talking!"

"i just bring others down... sorry, i'll just go lie on the floor somewhere else."

"What's wrong with you! I was going to exorcise you, bu-"

"What the hell are you doing! Are you trying to give me an aneurysm?!" I interrupted Aqua.

"Aneurysm?" Megumin questioned. "Really, Kazuma, you say some weird things sometimes."

"Kazuma! Help! I smelled a ghost in here and decided to come and send it to the afterlife, but this ghost is acting all depressed and apologetic! Now I feel bad for exorcising him!"

What?

"What do you mean?"

I looked at the ghost, well, it looked more like a kid wearing a blanket over their heads, and it was around the size of a kid too. But it was floating in the air, and it didn't have any legs poking out, so I could assume that it was just a very uncreative looking

"you wanted to kill me? what have i done wrong? we have never met before, is my existence a bother? sorry for existing then, you can exorcise me….i might as well just disappear…"

"See?! It is making me depressed too!"

I see.

"So you just ran ahead and bullied a ghost until he was too depressed to continue existing."

"When you put it like that, it sounds wrong!"

It is wrong though.

"Ahhh…don't blame her…. it was my fault…"

"He's being too apologetic! Tell him to stop whining and let me exorcise him!"

I looked at the ghost more carefully, examining him, he didn't seem to be hostile, but I'm not sure.

*_Napstablook 5 ATK, 4 DF. He seems to lack a sense of humor._

"He doesn't just lack humor, he is straight up depressing!" Aqua, who had heard the ghost, the annoying one specifically, said.

*Hey!

"No...i'm ABSOLUTELY funny."

"Your absurdly pathetic stats aside, Your name is Napstablook, right? I forgot to check your name."

"Stop insulting him and complaining when he gets depressed!" I said. Did she really like bullying him?

"it's fine… you don't need to remember my-"

"Stop! Please, stop! If you just leave, I will spare you! So please just leave!"

"sorry…" The ghost-Napstablook? The name seems like a pun of some sort-said. Does our 'goddess' really lack common sense this much? "sorry for bothering you, i'll just disappear." He floated upwards and phased through the ceiling, going out of sight.

...

After a moment of silence, Aqua said:

"His presence is gone."

"Wow, you bullied him away."

"Shut up."

…

"Wait, so he isn't going to attack me?" Darkness, who seemed fully prepared for getting beaten up, her arms stretched out besides her, said.

My teammates are really quite a handful, aren't they?

We proceeded through this place, Megumin seemed to disappear for a minute, but she quickly came back.

**Part 2  
**

Those mysterious hearts had appeared again.

They were the same as when we fought that garden weed, and appeared when we saw an enemy.

After poking the hearts for a while, which the weed called 'souls', my party members were ready for combat, they had taken a combat formation, Darkness was in the front as vanguard, Aqua and I were standing directly behind her, and Megumin was staying in the far back, since she was useless as a self destruct button.

Because she was a self destruct button.

The enemy we were facing off against moved, jumping towards Darkness.

"_Ah~_!" She let out a moan.

After Darkness got hit in the stomach, she immediately countered with a Sword attack.

It, of course, missed the target who was standing still.

"You vile creature, I won't let you harm my comrades!"

"I will bring holy justice on you! You only have mere moments left to live!"

"I will explode you to shreds! With my ultimat-"

"No you are not going to."

"At least let me finish my line!"

"What the hell are we doing anyways?"

"_Ribbit, Ribbit." _The frog…..said?

*It said: "You look scary! Please don't hurt me, I will do anything!"

No it didn't.

Indeed, the fearsome enemy in front of us was a frog.

Not a giant frog, Just a small cat kitten sized one.

Just a small, merciless, a bit odd looking blue-ish frog.

I have heard frogs with exotic colors are often poisonous, but it wasn't even a bright blue, it was just plain, muddy blue.

Darkness had 'attacked' it with an excited face, claiming it to be her knightley duty.

What part of her knightley duty is to kill frogs?

"Really, why are you being so serious against a frog?"

"Kazuma, frogs are the natural enemies of goddesses, those unholy creatures deserve to be exterminated." Aqua said.

"Even if it was your natural enemy, you would still need to be a goddess for it to be the natural enemy of a goddess."

"Hey! I _am _a goddess!"

"I am traumatized." Megumin said plainly.

"See? Just be like her. Even Megumin has dropped the Chuuni crap."

"No, these beasts have devoured me multiple times, bringing me, the great arch-mage to the brink of extinction."

"Nevermind. But really, the frog is scared of you, just look at it's face."

"Now that you say it…. It doesn't have a face, but it seems like it wants to run away." Megumin said as she came closer to the frog.

"It wouldn't be able to hurt me much anyway….I am sorry for attacking you." Darkness said and started petting it.

The frog started to become comfortable, and walked into Darkness' hand, much like a cat or a dog.

It seemed a bit odd, but I didn't feel any evil intent from it.

Finally, they are coming back to their senses.

"Now, go little fr-"

"**[God Blow]!**" Aqua lunged towards the frog, punching it with all her might.

I heard a faint cackle and felt a gaze before dust exploded from the frog, covering all of us.

…..

**Part 3**

"You really are dumbasses!" I said as I plopped down in a patch of leaves. We had finally reached a house made of stone, I didn't know who it belonged to, but there didn't seem to be many peo-_monsters _that would own a house here besides Toriel.

"I just can't resist the temptation to press buttons! It's my Crimson Demon instincts!"

"Screw your Crimson Demon instincts! They have already caused me enough problems, and you, Darkness! Did you really have to atta-no, harass those frogs?!"

"They were threatening us! I had to protect you from those vile beasts! With their strong jaws and sharp claws, they would have attacked all of us!"

"They were _frogs. Frogs, Darkness._ And not even the giant kind! They were just barely rat sized! They were confused at the degeneracy you were spouting! And hadn't you accepted that it wasn't dangerous? Is this a coping mechanism? "

"Darkness is right, Kazuma! Frogs are the spawns of hell crafted specifically to defile goddesses!"

"What goddess?! I'm not seeing any goddesses here? Do you mean the mentally handicapped girl who attacked a normal frog out of nowhere? You even made us wet trying to clean up the dust it scattered!" It had somewhat dried, but not before I

They were a bit bigger than average, but if flying cabbages are considered normal, that can't be too far out.

And the fact that Aqua hit it so hard that it turned to dust is a bit weird, did she really hate frogs that much?

"Hey! Why are you so rude to us today, Kazuma?"

"Because you are all especially stupid today! Your average amount of brain cells have downgraded from 3 to 1! I was wrong to say you were acting well today! You are acting like your usual useless, bitchy self! The moment you make a step forward, you take the difference between your intelligence and your mana amount of steps back!"

"Hey! Stop pulling on my cheeks! It hurts!"

"And you too! Where did you even get that donut?" I pointed my finger at Megumin.

She took a bite of the donut she was holding and said:

"Jeez, Kazuma, calm down, I felt like I smelled something after we met that ghost, and sure enough, in the next room over, there was a donut and some kind of juice on spider webs, I immediately took it and came back."

"When did you even do that...Wait, you just found some food on spider webs and decided to eat it?"

"I have eaten worse as a child, a cobweb is like a golden platter to me."

Ignoring the depressing implications, I snatched the Donut away from her and threw it away.

"Ah! My food! I was hungry!"

"I know that you must consume a lot of nutrients to develop properly, but eating things from is not good for your health, let me do it instead! Treating me like a dog, giving me all your leftovers or food you want from the ground! Kicking me when I ask for more, saying that I should 'What about you go out and earn the money for food using your erotic body?'! Then you beat me up, and defile me, and once I'm broken" Darkness said out of nowhere.

Nobody treated you like anything though.

"Darkness is right…..Wait, no! Ignore her! Just don't eat trash!"

My senses went alert.

I sensed an enemy nearby, but I felt it get away.

Is it that flower again?

I turned back, but didn't see anything.

It was still there, but I couldn't see anything.

Eventually, they went out of range, and I couldn't sense them anymore.

What the hell was that? Someone with sneak abilities? That flower again? Did it go back into the ground before I could see him? Was it the work of an enemy stand?

Alas, I continued pinching Aqua.

I heard the sound of a door opening behind me.

I let go of Aqua and turned back, she fell to the ground and said 'ow'.

"Waaa….Kazuma-san is so mean…"

"You have already reached here…."

She ran towards Aqua, and kneeled down.

"What's wrong, my child?"

That child is older than you, you know that right?

"Kazuma-san is so mean..."

Toriel looked at me.

"What did you do to her?"

"..." I looked away.

"He used such insults that he hurt her physically without a **[Vicious mockery] **spell." Megumin said.

"Insulting her being, and physically assaulting her, throwing her into the ground to hide his actions. Such a brute…"

"What the hell are you saying?! I didn't do such things! Are you _planning _to ruin my reputation further?"

Toriel looked at me with a questioning look in her eyes.

I averted my-

No, I have no reason to listen to her, she is a monster! This is really odd, don't the others see it too? Why are they listening to a monster like she is their mother?!

*She is my mother.

No one asked.

Wait.

*Fair.

"I just scolded her for ki…"

Wait, Toriel looks like the sort of person to be against killing, so if I say she killed someone….I don't think it will go well.

Think of a lie...

"She messed up all the puzzles while coming here, so I was scolding her for it."

"He-"

"I see...I may need to teach her how to properly solve them."

While she may have the mental intelligence of a kid, she's not, so please don't treat her like one.

"Now, come with me to my home." She reached her hand towards Megumin and Aqua, who grabbed it after hesitating for a bit.

She's a monster! She may want to kill us! Why are you holding her hand?

"You look like you are the youngest one, now come with me, my child."

Megumin's eyes darkened, she then took a deep breath and started muttering to herself, she then started squeezing Toriel's hand.

"What's wrong, my child?" Toriel looked at Megumin, seemingly not being hurt by Megumin's monstrous strength.

Is she that strong?

*She's a boss monster, of course she is.

Crap, is she the 'mother who fell into despair after her child died and started taking care of other people, and killing them when they don't fit in her delusions.' archetype?

*...

What.

*You got it right…..mostly.

Is she a trap?

*What? No! What even is a trap? I meant the murder part.

That's good to hear.

Well, everything says she isn't a serial murderer, but…

Megumin hardened her grip on Toriel's hand.

"Are you scared?"

I could hear her grip getting stronger.

"Don't worry, I'm here, you're safe now." Toriel said as she kneeled down and hugged Megumin.

"..." Megumin gave up on crushing Toriel's hand and returned the hug. Megumin tried to crush her, but failed again.

"It's good now. No need to worry."

"Darkness Blacker than Black…"

"What are you chanting...?"

"Stop! I know you don't have enough mana! But you're going to give me a heart attack!"

"W-What?"

We barely managed to restrain Megumin before she killed us.

Again.

**Author's note: I was really busy during this time period with school ending and stuff, so I wasn't able to write properly. I hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

**As for the Reviews:**

**KaiInvader: Thanks! I try to replicate the author's style, and I have read a lot of Konosuba, so even when I don't want to, it ends up similar.**


	6. Chapter 4 Interlude

**Chapter 4 Interlude**

"It should be near here…" I muttered to myself.

After smelling some potential food, I had split up from the party to look for it.

"Ah-ha! Here it is!" I said.

I looked at the donut, with its delicious, thick, and firm dough, the luscious purple colored coating, and sweet snow white glaze!

I didn't realize how hungry I had gotten, I had skipped breakfast this morning because the lecherous sloth was rushing to get out and do this quest, and in the little time, I had the choice to either take a snack or go to the bathroom, in which I chose the latter.

I thought he was getting influenced by a dark power, but thankfully, it was because of his vain desires of greed.

I quickly threw my hands at the donut, which was on a spider web, and-

Spider web?

In my moment of sinful gluttony, I had failed to notice the donut was sticking to a spider web.

I heard a buzzy sound from the right of the web and the donut.

There stood a spider, which had a thin, long body and long legs, it was a cellar spider that Kazuma called the 'Daddy long legs'.

What kind of name is that? It has no coolness or charm to it, compared to something like Chomusuke, it can't even be called a name. As a Crimson Demon, I'm ashamed of something embarrassing like that being its name.

A name is something poetic, symbolising what you are, and showing your deepest, core desires.

It has to be meaningful, gothic, and something you shall be proud to carry around!

For this reason, I shall give these poor creatures a new name.

Ehhh…Kutumarisaru! Yes! That sounds cool!

"Your and your siblings' name are now Kutumarisaru! I shall grant you this name! Consider it an honor!"

The Kutumarisaru was making a buzzing noise by rubbing it;, ignoring it, I grabbed the donut and took it, ripping it away from the webs. Some of which stayed on the donut.

When I took it, the buzzing turned into a hiss.

I patted the donut around, and took a bite out of it after getting any webs that had stayed on it off.

The hisses grew louder and more sporadic.

I didn't pay attention to it, and moved further in towards the room.

Now that my eternal gluttony was sated for a mere moment in the eternal marching of time, I could finally unlock the true potential of my psyche.

…

Now that I think about it, it isn't really a good idea to split away from the party, if anything attacked me here, I would be defenseless.

What am I saying?

"I'm the great archwizard Megumin! I am the master of Explosion magic! I shall beat any person who crosses my path, and blow them up until the death of their souls! Even if it kills me, I shall take them down to hell with me!"

"What are you talking about? Do you want to kill everyone again?" A mocking voice came out behind me.

It was the voice of someone I met before.

Specifically, that garden plant.

"Turn back, you foul creature, you dared to try to hurt me and my companions, and ultimately failed, now that you see me alone, you thought I would be weak and defenseless, so you could take me out easily, right? Hehehehe...Then you have been mistaken."

I turned around and extended my hand towards the plant.

"Is that a don-"

"Ah-ah-ah-ah! Caught it!"

I scrambled to catch the donut that was in my outstretched hand after I had accidentally thrown it away, and quickly went back into position.

The flower brought one of its leaves onto its face(?).

"Let me introduce myself to you, my name is-"

The flower closed its eyes and made an audible grunt.

"You already told me your name."

"My name is-"

"Are you braindead? I already know your name! Can't you hear-"

"Darkness blacker than black darker than dark, let the-"

"Don't do that! Do you _want_ to die?!" Vines rose from the ground towards me, they grabbed my outstretched hand and mouth, trying to restrain me from chanting my spell.

I have heard that girls need to be wary of plant and tentacle monsters…

I pulled my restrained hand towards myself, freeing it from the vines. I then grabbed the vines on my mouth with both hands and pulled on them.

"Ah! Stop! Don't pull on my vines! You are gonna rip it out! Why are you so strong?! Stop! _**STOP!**_" The vines lashed out, and escaped from my grasp, retracting back into the ground.

The flower took shallow breaths-

Wait, do plant monsters even take breaths?

"By the way, what kind of plant are you?"

"Why should I tell yo-"

"Darkness Darker than-"

"I'm a buttercup."

"Do buttercups talk? The only plants I know that talk are Tranquility girls."

"Buttercups don't talk! I'm not a normal buttercup! Wait, plants don't talk in the first place!"

"Some do."

"Plants aren't sentient!"

"They are! And you're a plant that is sentient!"

"I'm not a normal plant!"

"Are you a secret experiment?!"

"Yes!"

"Then I have kinship with you! I was an experiment by an ancient scientist too!"

"My scientist wasn't ancient! Stop, this conversation is going nowhere, let me just tell you what I came here to tell."

"Oh-ho? You have a message for me, the great archwizard Megumin?"

"Yes, yes, I wanted to tell you something."

"Then speak."

"...Do you want to be more powerful?"

"Eh?"

"You know what EXP is, right?"

"...Of course I do, do you think I'm stupid?"

"Good, I don't know how, but you know about it, so I won't have to explain it."

"I gain skill points with EXP, which I can use to empower my magic, which is the reason I live!"

"Ok, then…"

As it said that, its face(?) got more sinister, and a sick grin appeared on it.

"...I can help you get a lot of EXP here."

"...So you're saying that you'll help me kill everyone here?"

"Yes, let's bring an end to this world, and kill everyone here."

Its face grew even more sinister, turning demonic, like the face it made when it fooled us when we first fell.

"Hehehe...You're right, it would certainly grant a lot of EXP, as long as you don't steal my kills. It's amazing, really."

"Kekekeke...Let's start by killing everything here, with your high magic power, it shouldn't be a problem."

"You're right, it will be easy, but I'm not interested in small fry, instead..."

I looked at the flower and smiled.

"Let's start with you."

The flower left the demonic face for a more confused one and looked at me.

I immediately lunged towards it, grabbing it before it could go back into the ground.

"What? Let go of me!"

"You seem to be worth a lot EXP! Be my first kill in this dungeon!

"No! Let's kill the entire underground together, after all, you're Chara, right? Won't you help your best friend?"

"Who is Chara? Hmmm….Which petal should I rip out first? Or should I start from the stem?"

"You really are crazy! Let me go!"

"Do you think I would let free EXP go?"

I grabbed one of it's petals and started pulling on it, almost ripping it out.

"Let go of me!"

I heard something behind me, and when I looked back, vines and white pellets had come up from the ground and were coming towards me.

I dodged them by jumping to the side, but the flower managed to escape my grasp because of it

"Negotiating with you was no use!"

It said as it went back into the ground fully, escaping to who knows where.

I was left there alone, with the Kutumarisaru scrambling off besides me.

Forgetting about the bottle, I put the donut in one of my pockets and ran back to meet my party.

"Free EXP, huh?"

**Chapter 5 coming soon.**


	7. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

This is fine.

She probably doesn't want to eat us.

We can escape at any time.

The door isn't locked.

I think.

Hopefully.

I stood up to check on the door.

Thankfully, it wasn't locked.

I was starting to think about getting the **[Lock Pick]** skill that Chris used, though since I had recently used my points on the **[Lip Reading] **skill, I didn't have enough skill points.

So something would have had to die.

And there were 3 things in this room besides me.

Aqua's revival ability would be very useful then.

*That's morbid for a guy who claims to be gutless.

Or whatever the heck happened after Megumin blew us up, I still had no idea about what happened, was that a dream, or time reversal, or something else?

Did she even get skill points off of that?

I'll be sure to ask her later

I gave a sign saying it wasn't locked.

Darkness gave a sigh of something between relief and disappointment and continued with sitting on the bed awkwardly. She had something in her hand she was concentrating hard on.

I returned to the bed, avoiding stepping on Aqua since I didn't want to start a fight, and sat back on the bed.

Bored, I started looking around at the room, it had 2 beds on the opposite sides, with posters and toy boxes standing around them. It basically looked like a normal, modern, kid room, it was even making me nostalgic when I looked at it!

The thing is, 'modern' doesn't suit the setting.

Are these monsters some (relatively) super technologically advanced society?

Are these the 'Ruins' of that society, which had fallen?

Wait, that crazy guy who invented the Destroyer said something about a fallen country.

….

Leaving that train of thought, I looked at Megumin.

Megumin was sleeping on the bed in front of us, she fell asleep immediately after getting here, not caring for the fact it was a stranger's bed in what seemed like a kid's room.

*Can confirm, it's a kid's room.

Good.

…

"Where are the children?"

Aqua and Darkness looked at me for a second, Aqua was the first one to speak.

"He finally came out and said it! He admitted he is a lolicon! The Loli-Neet finally said it! Does your scumbaggery know no bounds?"

"It's not like that!"

"Hey, Kazuma, instead of hurting kids, you should hurt me instead!"

"No! You perverts!" I screamed at them.

I immediately closed my mouth, hoping that Toriel hadn't heard it.

I listened closely, and could hear her cooking something as normal.

"This seems oddly like a kid's room, right?"

"Yes, are you say-"

"No, what I'm saying is if this is a kid's room, then where are they?"

"They probably left for college or something, whatever, let me finish this." Aqua went back to whatever she was doing after saying that.

I looked above her, and she had a lot of crayons scattered in front of her. She probably took them from the toy box.

Now that I look at it, I noticed another box beside it.

"What's a college? Anyways, they could have just moved out, right? Or maybe they died and she is griefing?"

"That's a possibility…"

"Maybe they got captured by-"

"Please stop." I interrupted Darkness before she could finish.

"...That aside, they probably moved out."

"Yeah, but I feel like that's not the case…" I wandered around in the rather cramped room, taking a look at the closed box.

My curiosity overcame me, and I crouched down and opened it, not regarding any kind of privacy.

Shoes.

What I found inside were lots of shoes.

All kinds of shoes, all different types.

There were girl's shoes, boy's shoes, kidren's shoes...

Isn't this too many shoes?

*Impressive observation.

Very thanks.

I closed the box.

"I'm going to take a walk outside."

"What's wrong?" Darkness questioned me.

"Wait! Let me show you these first!" Aqua said, as she finally stood up with papers on her hands.

"Hmm?" I took the papers and looked at them 1 by 1

What was on the papers were marvelous paintings, they each contained a kid that looked around 12, wearing a green and yellow striped shirt. The picture was on the same level as famous artist's masterpieces, to think she had done this in less than an hour…

Wait.

"Hey, Aqua, what did you draw these with?"

"Eh? Oh right, I did them with crayons."

"...So, you drew this with crayons?"

"Yes?"

…

It must feel demeaning for someone to surpass your masterpiece with nothing but crayons in an hour.

"Life is truly unfair..." I looked at Aqua in the eyes.

"What do you me-Oh, are you jealous of my skills? Then join the Axis cult and I will grant you-"

"Nevermind, what did you want to tell me? Your favourite colour of crayons?"

"No! Do you think I'm that childish?! These are the pictures of the ghost."

"Oh." I looked at the pictures.

Every inch of the paper was eloquently painted with rich colors, as if she had made it with the most expensive paint in the world, it had truly captured-

*Stop rambling, I know it is good and all, but you don't need to praise it that much, wait, she drew me like that? It's really beautiful!

So this is you…

I looked at the drawings one by one, the first one looked to be a drawing of a kid looking on a pile of flowers, which held close resemblance to the ones we fell on.

The second one was with a monster, a kid that looked like Toriel.

I think I'm starting to piece it together.

So you fell here before us, and you got adopted and died, but stayed as a ghost, and if I had to guess, Toriel was struck by grief because of that.

*Hey, no! You aren't supposed to find that out until the end!

As you may see, I just did.

See? Hear? What does reading my thoughts even feel like?

*It feels disgusting, so I prefer to not do it much for memories, but that's irrelevant, but please, can you kindly suffer a very minor case of major brain damage and forget it?

No, even if I did, Aqua can always heal me.

Speaking of Aqua, that's a quite convenient power, to look at dead people's memories.

It may have helped if she told that earlier.

*No! You can't do that! At least don't spoil it to the others!

"What? What's that ghost talking about? Anyways, are you done with it?"

"You did these with crayons? Well, you probably have a lot of experience with them, seeing your mental age."

"Oi! Just look at them all! Be thankful I even showed them to you!"

"Ok, Ok."

I lifted the other ones to look at the final picture.

"What the hell is this?"

You seem to have quite the scary face.

"Ah yes, that's one of their final memories, I am surprised that the usually cowardly Kazuma didn't piss himself."

"Hey, give me credit, I watched a lot of horror movies when I was in Japan."

And other...more questionable things too.

"What are you talking about?" Darkness, who was messing with some toy, looked over my shoulder.

"Can I keep it in my room?"

"Sure."

I gave all of the papers to Darkness.

"No just this one."

"Sure."

I threw the rest away in the bin after getting slightly traumatized from the last one.

*That picture is a lie.

Is it, now?

*Mayhaps.

"Anyways, I'm going outside, want to come with me? I'm going to search for an escape route, though my intuition says that the stairs are the only way. I want to see for myself."

"Wait, are you fine with leaving Megumin here?" Darkness said as she punched the thing in her hand one more time.

It started flashing bright colors, and it made a loud noise.

_**WEE WOO WEE WOO WEE WOO WEE WOO**_

So it was a toy police car.

I heard footsteps coming towards this room.

Yep, I'm leaving!

**Part 2**

"Did you really have to tie her to the bed?" Aqua asked me.

"No, but she wanted it."

She looked at me with eyes full of disgust.

"And how is that going to help? Wouldn't restraining her be a detriment?"

"This is why you get called stupid, Aqu-"

"Tell me who calls me that."

Those words seemed oddly familiar.

*I would tell you the reason….

"See, Aqua, you saw how Toriel reacted earlier when she witnessed the endless depths of Darkness' degeneracy."

"As if yours has an end."

Why has she become so witty today?

"Anyways, what I'm saying is, just her being there would intimidate Toriel into closing the door."

"There's no guarantee that's work though."

She is actually using brain cells here, is she?

"Don't worry I didn't actually use any spells, I just pretended to, she could break out at any point if she wanted to, so even if she attacked them, Darkness could protect Megumin."

"But what if she fails?"

"Megumin will use **[Explosion]**."

*...

"**[Sacred Highness Heal].**"

"What?"

"There is something wrong with your head."

"No no, she won't actually use it! It's still, that will just buy us enough time to get back!"

"But if what if we can'-"

"Then we never really stood a chance, did we?"

"That's right..."

Now that I say that out loud, I felt a little scared.

"Ah, so if you die, I should just grab your bones and run!"

"Wait, what, no! I was wrong in thinking you were somewhat thinking!"

*She does have a point though, it isn't any stupider than what you thought of, and all she needs to resurrect you is any part of your body, so she could still help, though Exploding it all wouldn't be too bad either…

Ah, I see, another crazy person.

*...What is better, dying instantly or getting eaten alive? Also, please don't be so paranoid, I feel like you're losing your mind, that plan barely even made sense.

It is hard to not lose my mind when there are voices in my head.

I examined the areas near the house a bit more to find an exit, and found a door that led to some kind of balcony that overlooked a city.

A city…

There's a whole bloody city?

...

There didn't seem to be much commotion going on, unlike a city.

Toriel said this place was the Ruin a few times,

This will be longer than I thought.

"Did you find something, Kazuma? Oh, what is this?"

She leaned down to pick something from the ground.

"Hmm? Is this a knife?" she said.

"It looks like it, what would a knife be doing here?"

"Maybe it is Toriel's, she could have left it here."

"Why would she leave a knife on a balcony?"

"Don't you ever drop something you're carrying outside?"

"Why would she be carrying a knife here?"

"I don't know, why else would there be a knife?"

I looked at the knife closely, and noticed the lack of any shine or reflections that would be present in a normal knife.

Hesitantly, I gave it a small touch on the edge, it was completely dull.

I heard some ominous laughter, and my **[Enemy Detection]** skill went off, but the feeling disappeared as quickly as it appeared as I caught a glimpse of a yellow blur while turning around.

Was it that garden weed again?

Without Darkness here, we might have trouble if he decides to attack us.

But the feeling disappeared, so he might just be watching us.

I picked up the knife and put it in my bag.

*_You found the toy knife._

So that makes more sense, a child might have dropped it here while playing with it.

But that raised the question I had back in that room:

"Where are the children?!"

"Eeek! The Loli-Neet strikes again!"

"Just shut up, you know that is not what I mean, there are all these children's toys lying around and no signs of actual children."

"I told you, they probably went to college."

"Does college even exist here?"

"I bet 500 Eris it does!"

"Why-Okay, even if it _did_ exist, why would she leave the knife here?"

"Maybe she hasn't had time to clean it up."

"She would probably notice this if the kids had gone for a few days, it's not like she doesn't go outside either."

"...You're...right…" she said, finally realizing that something odd was going on.

"So, what do we do?"

"I would just say attack instantly, but she looks really strong and I don't have a death wish, so at least wait for Megumin to wake up, as useless as she might be, it would still be better to everyone…now that I said it out loud, I realized how stupid that sounded. So we should act quick before I change my min-"

"Is that pie?" Aqua interrupted me.

"What?"

"I smell something." She said.

After she said that, I sniffed the air, and sensed the smell of pie… and something else coming from the house..

I went back towards the house, leaving the balcony, Aqua followed me.

As I got closer to it, I could hear the sounds of soft footsteps.

That was probably Toriel.

I hid under the window and listened inside.

She walked towards the room with Darkness in it, and twisted the doorknob.

Despite that, I couldn't hear the sound of her opening the door.

She placed what sounded like a plate on the ground and quickly left with shaky footsteps.

I see, my genius strategy worked.

*It was not genius-

I mentally put my finger on their lips.

"Shhh-It worked."

"Stop talking to your personal ghost, you look crazy."

"Do you have any sense of self conscience? Also, a personal ghost? Since when did they become my personal ghost?"

*Hey, I spend all day helping you and I'm not even recognized as your personal ghost? Just so you know, I could be helping many different people in the time I spend on you.

All your help so far has been sarcastic remarks and insults, which I could very well do by myself.

*_Guess narrating for a person who can actually see through first person is not as helpful. They should have let me narrate instead of you._

What?

*Nothing.

I know that was not nothing, but I don't want to delve any further, so I'm going to ignore it.

After making sure she was gone, I slowly opened the door to the house and sneaked towards the room we were being held in with my **[Lurk]** skill.

There were 4 plates-

"Does she have 4 arms?" Aqua raised a valid(lol) question.

*No.

"Why should I trust a ghost?"

"Aqua, with my **[Arm Detection]** skill, I confirmed she didn't have 4 arms, so don't worry."

"Hmm? I can trust Kazuma, as hi- are you making fun of me?!"

Anyways, there were 4 plates with a single slice of pie on each.

I hesitantly took two of the plates and carried them inside.

"_Hmmph Hmm!_" Darkness 'said'.

I set the 2 plates on my hand to the ground, took the other two and closed the door after deciding to let Aqua in.

"Welcome." Megumin said.

"Ah, you, you're finally awake! I thought you were going to sleep all day in a monster's, who could eat your face off and make you into pie, and more importantly a stranger's house!" I said.

"Your priorities are wrong." Aqua said.

Tell her off.

*Tell her off yourself.

"What?" she said at the ghost's words.

"You're the reason why I promised myself to not dump intelligence in video games."

"Oi, you wanna pick a fight?" She took a fighting stance.

"Why can't all you be more reasonable? You're all too quick to anger." Megumin said.

"Back to the point, you were surprisingly non-hesitant about sleeping here."

"Yeah, I would have slept all day if not for Darkness' moans waking me up."

"Ah yes Darkness, I forgot about her."

I slowly untied the ropes tying Darkness down and removed her mouth gag.

"You knew that you could have broken out easily right?" I asked her.

"N-no…"

_Sigh._

"Anyways, what should we do with these?" Megumin pointed at the pies.

"They look gross." Aqua said.

"They probably are monster food instead of human food, it would be better if we left them right here. Such a shame, I finally thought we were getting some food, I haven't eaten in a while." I slowly poked the pie while saying that, they had a green-whiteish filling. It looked gross, but had a nice smell to it.

Are they really made out of snails?

"Yeah, I'm hungry too." Megumin said.

"Didn't you just eat? I know you are at an age where you need to eat a lot for development, but how can you be this much of a glutton?"

"That donut I ate was not satisfactory, it was almost as bad as the bugs I used to eat."

I felt a tingling on the back of my neck that went away after a few seconds again.

It was weaker this time, but still there.

I turned to look around the room, and there was nothing.

Was it that garden weed again?

How did it get in the house?

There weren't even pots here.

What the hell was that?

"What's wrong, Kazuma?"

"Aside from the feeling of being watched, nothing."

"Oh, ok then-what did you say?"

"We can just eat them and if they're poisonous, Aqua can heal us." Darkness said.

"Yeah...and it doesn't look that…bad." Megumin half heartedly tried to convince herself.

"I can heal all of you! My Hagoromo makes me immune to poison! So I can heal you if you get poisoned!" She said.

*I feel like this seems familiar, maybe a little ripped off.

Shut.

"But really, that isn't a good idea." I said.

"Don't be so scared! It is normal for an adventurer to rely on healing magic!"

Are people of this world less hesitant about eating dangerous food because of healing magic?

But wait a…

"Isn't healing magic really rare here?"

As I said that, I heard a knock on the door.

We all stopped talking and stared at the door.

"Hey Kazuma, go open it."

"Why do I need to open it?!"

"You're the most expendable one here, you have already done lots of times, one more wouldn't hurt much."

"What the hell are you saying…" I slowly walked towards Aqua.

"Oh-ho? You're approaching me?"

"I can't beat some sense into you without getting closer."

*...Is that a reference...?

"Then come as close as you like! Let me deal with this NEET and then the one outside!"

Aqua and I walked towards each other after striking menacing poses.

"W-Well, I can open the door for you…" Darkness said.

"Wait, Darkness, this girl has gotten too full of herself, let me deal with her first."

The moment we got close to each other, I threw a rope at her.

"**[Bind]!**" The rope lunged it towards Aqua. But before it reached her...

"**[Sacred Break Spell]**!" The rope stopped it's movement and started falling to the ground.

"**[Wind Breath]!**" The wind blew away the rope towards Aqua again.

"Ah, my eyes!" She cried out.

Normally, being such a thin rope, it would hit them in the face lightly or fly past them, but because of my luck and Aqua's lack of it, it hit her straight in the eyes.

I took advantage of the opportunity by grabbing her neck and draining her mana out of it.

No matter how much I drained, she didn't even show a sign of exhaustion.

"Did you think you could take even 1% of my mana? You utter fool." She said.

She raised her fist up into the sky.

"**[God…**"

Crap.

This is scary.

"**...Blow]!**"

She brought her fist down towards me.

I hope I die fast.

I closed my eyes.

"Don't fight!" The door suddenly smacked open, and I felt a sensation of heat.

Ah, thank you for adding fire to the fire.

*Fire to the water.

I waited for the moment of my death, but that moment didn't happen(For now), instead, I heard fire crackling and the sound of flesh hitting metal in front of me.

"_Ahhhhhh~~~~~_"

I opened my eyes to see Darkness get driven onto the ground, which was the source of fire, by Aqua's fist.

The wooden floor broke under her, trapping her there.

If that hit me...

"This...Sensation…Fire and… Aqua's fist...and...being stuck, all at once! _Ahmgh~~~!"_

Toriel let out a gasp full of worry and rushed towards her aid.

She waved her hands around, which stopped the fire rushing from the ground, she then kneeled down on the ground and reached out to Darkness.

"What the hell-heck?! Why did she jump there?" Toriel quickly changed course just as she was about to curse.

As I stood there, I slowly comprehended what happened.

Just before Aqua's fist hit me, Darkness jumped in front of me, at the same time, Toriel used fire magic to separate Aqua and I.

No need to worry, Toriel-san, I don't think you need to censor yourself in front of her.

I wanted to say that, but she was too busy with actually helping her out, unlike Aqua, Megumin and I, who were idly looking at Darkness.

"Wha-What?" Megumin stuttered.

She was probably the most shocked here, despite acting calm headed, she really couldn't handle sudden situations like this.

Maybe that explained the murder-suicide…..

Anyways.

"Aqua! What are you standing there for?! Fix the problems you caused by attempting to attack me and heal her!"

"Wha-What?! Are you fra-"

Toriel put her hands on Darkness, and a green covered her hand.

"I need to say your healing magic is stronger than me, so please help her out." Toriel said as she pulled Darkness out of the hole on the floor, carrying her in her arms.

Toriel looked at Darkness with a worried look, who instead had flushed cheeks and a satisfied grin. Her clothes were burned away and charred at certain places, but still mostly intact, no way exposing enough skin to be erotic enough for me to oggle.

The fire hadn't hurt her much, there weren't any signs of burning in the bits of exposed skin I could see, at most it was the charred remains of the little pieces of clothing that had burned away.

This was likely due to Aqua's water flavoured punch or Toriel's spell not being that strong. She was probably holding back, probably because she doesn't like her food overcooked.

If she had used stronger magic, I would have more skin to look at!

Damn it, Toriel, you should have used stronger magic!

*What the hell?

"Ah-Ah yes! My healing magic is superior to everyone! I'm a goddess after all! Look! **[Sacred Highness Heal]!**" Aqua casted a spell which was arguably unnecessary on Darkness.

"Thank you." Toriel held Darkness closer to herself.

Oi, is this supposed to be a dramatic moment?

*Yes.

Wait, first of all, you have barely exchanged a few sentences with each other, there's no collection between you!

*Well, you don't need dialogue to build connections.

_Then. _Darkness wasn't hurt at all and probably passed away from climaxing! Toriel being worried is completely pointless!

*Just read the mood.

_What_ mood?!

There isn't any mood to read! Even if someone is being noble and graceful, my party will always ruin it! That's how it works!

*Wouldn't it be good to not ruin it for Toriel even if there is no mood for you?

...I'll give her the favor this time.

"_Ahhh~ _That was so good! Bombardment from 2 attacks, from 2 sides of the elemental spectrum! Although the fire was still weak, Aqua's punch more than made up for it!"

"...what?"

Toriel could only with a confused look at Darkness' words.

Well, how unexpected, Darkness went and ruined it anyways!

*It may...still...be salvageable.

I wouldn't exactly call myself a pessimist, but that is not salvageable, this bit has happened countless times already, doesn't she ever go out of heat?

"Next time, please put more mana into your spells! This one barely even burned small chunks of my clothes!"

"Eh? What are you talking about...? Are you alright?"

Every word uttered by Darkness only served to make Toriel more confused.

"She is alright, it's just the shock from that attack."

"I was sure I didn't put that much in my attack, was she..." She suspiciously looked at Aqua, probably contemplating if she really did this.

She didn't notice the gaze because of her gloating.

"Ok then, let her rest, the-"

"I have no need for rest! I feel great!" Darkness suddenly jumped out and said.

"O-Ok then…are you not hurt?"

"That attack barely even scratched me!"

"That was a powerful attack, it would have….never mind." She looked at Darkness, and then at Megumin with the same look she gave Aqua.

When she looked at Megumin, terror overtook her face for a split second, then she shook her head and forced a smile.

Megumin was the only one to notice it, due to her higher intelligence.

"Hehehehe….you fear my true power…"

*Due to her higher need to be noticed.

Right.

I subtly kicked Megumin in the legs, to which she reacted with an 'ow', and then turned to Toriel.

"...Since you are all awake, do you want to eat the pie together?"

**Part** **3**

She brought us to a room that looked like a living room, with a table on the other side of the room, and a fireplace with two armchairs besides it to our right.

There was also a door, which had the faint smell of pie coming from it.

"The other plates were ruined, right? Then I should go and get you some new ones, wait here while I reheat it."

I hadn't brought up the matter of leaving here, so she wouldn't be suspicious.

It sounded like she was reheating some of the leftover pie, after the ones she gave us got ruined in the squabble.

I turned towards my party and slightly nodded at them.

Seeing that, Darkness and Megumin nodded back at me, probably getting my intent.

I was planning on scouting every, but the ghost...calling you ghost is getting a bit tiresome, what even is your name?

*It's supposed to remain ambiguous.

Ok, Stalker mentioned that the downstairs was the right option.

*Hey!

Tell her now is our chance.

*Now is our chance...

Let's sneak down the stairs now.

*Let's sneak down the stairs now.

The meddlesome ghost talking in my head could only be heard by Aqua and me, so they could transmit my thoughts to Aqua without attracting any attention.

*Are you calling me meddlesome even after how much I helped you?

"Haa? You want us to run away? Why do you want to run away, do you want to get purified elsewhere? Do you like your basement?"

"What?" a voice came from the kitchen.

Of course, Aqua had to ruin it.

"Just run." I said as I hurriedly walked down the stairs, passing Darkness and Megumin on the way.

They followed me with Darkness staying the furthest behind to protect us.

"Oh, wait, you mean the plan to escape? You should have told me that earlier."

"Don't scream it outloud! She might hear it!" I said in a hushed tone.

There were footsteps coming from the kitchen.

"Crap, just run." I said as I ran down the stairs and into the basement area, dragging the others along.

It was a long and narrow corridor, much reminiscent of ones we had been through earlier, with moss and vines growing on the purple colored walls.

Before we could reach the first turn, a torrent of heat hit my face, making my eyes tear up as I closed them. In front of us, a large wall of fire had come up from the ground, much similar to the ones Toriel

"Stop right there! You are not escaping here."

Toriel, who had finished chanting her spell, ran towards us as she said.

I knew it! She's finally showing her obsessive qualities!

I hadn't expected this development to be this sudden, and had planned to sneak out quietly.

But because of Aqua's and my rash decisions, we had alerted Toriel.

If I had just brushed it off at that moment, we could have escaped.

But I guess it is too late for that now.

As I watched Toriel, who was charging at us at blinding speed, about to catch up any moment, Darkness jumped on top of the fire and blocked a part of it big enough for a person to jump over.

"Jump over me! _Ahhh~ _While still not satisfactory, it's much better than that pathetic flame earlier!"

Toriel made a shocked face as she gasped and stopped, releasing her spell.

While it was a bit surprising to see Darkness act with any intelligence, she quickly got back in character and made one of her usual perverted remarks.

But what she said was probably true, the fire here felt hotter than back in the room, Toriel had probably made this one more powerful to keep us from running away.

The fires started to fade, and the heat lessened.

We jumped over Darkness and I dragged her behind me after noticing she was staying there for a little bit too long.

We ran down the corridor, turning around the corner and seeing a gate with the same symbol that was on Toriel's clothing on it.

Is this some kind of royal symbol or something?!

Toriel was quickly closing in the distance between us and her.

She was really fast, as expected of a high tier monster.

She was shooting fireballs at us, which we were managing to dodge,

I could activate my **[Escape]** skill, but I would need to leave my party behind, as it didn't apply to anyone but myself.

Seems like I will need to use a spell to distract her...

Tell Aqua to cast a strength buff on me, I'll blind her.

*How-wait, oh, I see, Hey, Aqua, Kazuma told you to cast strength buffs on him, he's going to blind Toriel.

"Are you stupid? You don't need strength buffs for the earth-wind-whatever combo, right?"

If you're gonna speak out loud, then there's no reason for ghostly communication anyways!

"Just do it." I said.

"Do what?" Megumin asked.

After hesitating for a second, she cast some buffs on me, I could feel my body get stronger as I shined bright light.

"Ok then...I cast…"

I grabbed Darkness by the arm.

"Eh?"

"**[Darkness]!**"

...and threw her at Toriel.

'It' hit her straight on the head, and made her fall over backwards.

Just according to keikaku.

*_TL's Note: 'Keikaku' means 'plan'._

"I never knew you were this bad! Kazutrash."

"Scumzuma was always like this, he would use his allies as ammunition if he needed to."

"Such a brute...Forcefully throwing his comrades...being an arrow doesn't seem so bad..."

"I have to do what I have to do, and that was necessary

Her head didn't show any signs of injury, but I noticed a bit of dust falling from her upper face.

It had more of an effect than I thought, I had only intended to distract her.

"Darkness, quick, come!"

She snapped out of her dazed state and caught up with us.

We were very close to the end of the hallway, when I heard Toriel stand back up and dash towards us.

We reached the door, and I tried to open it, And I was slowly opening it until a fire attack interrupted me, I swiftly dodged it, and faced Toriel.

She had finally caught up, and was preparing a spell.

"Stop. If you go any further, _they_ will get you."

"They...?"

"_Him...Asgore..._If I let you leave, he will...kill you..."

She seemed hesitant on her last statement.

I see, so it doesn't end here.

"If you take a step closer, I won't hesitate to explode all of the underground with you!" Megumin yelled as she charged up her explosion spell, she was probably bluffing, but I could see the mana gathering at the end of her staff.

Toriel, sensing the mana, took a step back, and looked shocked.

"Ha...Haha...Ha...I see, you really are going to destroy the underground, I see, I don't need to protect you from them, I need to protect them from _you_."

She said as she took a battle stance.

Wait, she was trying to protect us? Is she going to fight us seriously now? Crap, this is bad.

Hearts appeared in front of us. As we prepared for the attack.

She launched a flurry of fireballs, directed at us, I examined them, seeing a clear pattern there.

As they got closer, I could feel the heat emanating from them, it was far more powerful than anything she had used until now, it might even kill me in one shot if I touched it.

She was really serious about this….

*What did you expect after all of this?

Darkness jumped in front of Megumin and blocked them, and I dodged the ones that came towards me.

And Aqua used some kind of magic to reflect the fireballs.

Megumin can't use her explosion here, Darkness can't hit her and I doubt I can deal much damage.

This is really bad.

I took out my sword, though I doubt it would be of much help…

Toriel shot more fireballs, as I analyzed the pattern for each one and dodged them, they had very clear patterns, much like that of a videogame boss, and I was always lucky enough to be in a favourable position to dodge them.

It was getting really hot in here, so I used **[Freeze]** a couple of times to keep cool.

Think, Kazuma, think!

Wait...

"No matter how much you burn me, I will not yield." Darkness said.

"You are really honourable, are you a knight? It's regrettable I must hurt a knight of humanity, this may evolve into further conflict, but I can't let you pass."

While Toriel was distracted by Darkness, I reached into my bag and took something I had made from it.

It was a stick of dynamite, I had lost most of it during the battle with Wolbach, and Megumin had prevented me from making any more after we got back, so I only had one stick of dynamite left….

This could potentially damage Toriel…

I gestured to Megumin, who was still holding her magic to distract Toriel, she understood my message, and started holding her eye and making poses with her staff.

"Ahhh! My power is going out of control, I may release my magic at any time now! If I do, all of the underground will be devoured by it along with us!"

Toriel made a troubled face as she looked at Megumin.

She looked like she was buying Megumin's Chuuni crap.

"**[Bind]!**" I threw my mythril alloy rope at Toriel while she was distracted. It entangled her body, restraining her arms and ruining her balance, which made her trip over.

"Wha-what?!"

"Good job, Megumin!" I told her as I flashed the dynamite in front of me and prepared to throw it at Toriel.

"What is….that...?" Toriel slowly said as she stared at my creation.

"Ka-Kazuma, I think I really can't hold it in… I am at my limit…wait...you made more of those? I will really blow this place up!"

"Wait, don't, hold it in! if you do it inside, I'll-"

"I...can't let you do that!" Toriel said as she was still bound with rope.

"Huh?"

There's something coming from underneath Megumin.

Fire built up beneath her feet, charring her shoes a bit.

Without thinking, I jumped and pushed her out of the way.

I was swallowed in fire, not that of Megumin's, there wasn't enough of a shockwave for it to be that, no, instead, it was the fire that Toriel had produced.

I felt my nerves burn just before my consciousness faded.

...

Once again, I woke up in a familiar black room.


End file.
